Inside ASWC

An Emergency Joint Session was held on April 22 to spread out the many items that need approval of both houses. It started with the Finance Committee announcing that budget hearings will be held on Tuesday and Thursday at 4 p.m. and Friday at 2 p.m. in Reid 240 in 10-minute slots for clubs to request changes to the monies allocated to them in the committee’s preliminary budget.

Later in the meeting, Ajay presented that budget and explained a few key factors. First, there is a proposed change to the bylaws that will be presented at the next joint session in which the Pioneer will receive eight percent instead of nine percent of ASWC’s budget; however this will technically result in the Pioneer receiving $4000 more next year than this past year because, as Alex Potter reported last week, ASWC has been breaking its own bylaws when approving budgets and not abiding by the current nine percept stipulation.

Also, a bylaw change that was approved passed that creates the Travel and Conference Fund, as a separate line item on the overall budget for clubs to use instead of their own budgets for travel; requesting from it will work just like contingency requests. Working on this also led to some hopes for change in club leadership, communication and duties that will be worked out at a later time.

The IHC and IHC Block Party have been split into two separate lines, and the Films, Speakers
and Public Events budgets were all increased to encourage clubs to use this budget to bring events to campus because the chairs in these positions have training with contracts and licensing.

Policy Committee is working on attendance and voting in the Senate, as well as revamping ways for Senators to communicate with their constituents. Dan Shaw is working on changing Reading Day to multiple days or even a “dead week” since Whitman doesn’t really have one because it often falls on weekend days. Thomas Miller is going to look into a resolution to encourage the faculty to allow for freedom of assembly and speech in response to the “rap-off incident,” where the event was broken up. Bryce McKay is still working on his resolution on diversity, and the ad hoc committee by George Bridges has proposed a Dean of Diversity position be added to the administration. To be on this committee, contact Jed Schewndiman, associate to the president.

Programming has a lot coming up: Choral Contest on April 27 from 7-9 p.m. in Cordiner, Ren Faire on April 28 from 10-5 p.m. on Boyer, the Blue Moon-KWCW party on April 28 at 9:30 p.m. on the Reid side lawn, and a lecture by Alfred Lubrano on May 1 at 7 p.m. in Maxey Auditorium.

The Nominations Committee, having spent the past two weeks conducting interviews, has made its selections for positions that will be approved by both houses at the next joint session meeting. For more information, e-mail Laura Hanson, the Nominations Chair.
The Executive Council is working on The Source, a pamphlet for first-years that will inform them about ASWC. If you or your club would like anything to go in, such as a promotional blurb, let ASWC President Eric Wehlitz know. The Web site is being perfected by Josh Carp, using the old template, and clubs should send any updated information to either Ajay or Eric to be put on the site.

Senior Senator Shea Dunda had a complaint filed against him with the Oversight Committee, and their investigation found that he has not fulfilled his duties as a senator, having only attended three of the 19 Senate or Joint Session meetings, four Programming Committee meetings and none of the Senior Forums. In order for impeachment proceedings to take place, a 3/5 majority of the Senate needed to sign a petition; this was passed around, and enough senators signed, so the process will continue at the next meeting.

A change to Section 2 of the Constitution was approved to be sent to the student body and voted on either before the end of the year or during the first-year Senate elections in the fall. It is about the discriminatory nature of Pan-Helenic, IFC and gendered Club Sports, and allows organizations permitted by the Faculty Policy Code and explicit endorsement from the administration to be recognized by ASWC.

The bylaw change that has been in the works for a while now that splits the position of Communications Director into two, Secretary and Communications Director, was approved.

Lack of GLTBQ culture stifles same-sex dating

“Obviously, there is no dating scene at Whitman,” said senior Kyle Martz. For Martz and other GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered) students on campus, trying to date within the group is a frustrating experience.

Martz believes that in order to have dating among the GLBT students, there must actually be a GLBT community to date in. “We have same-sex couples on campus, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we have a queer community . . . . The problem is that people don’t date if they don’t know each other. We have a lot of queers here who don’t know how to deal with queer culture since they haven’t been exposed to it.”

“It’s indicative of Whitman’s recruiting process. We recruit uptight, tight-ass overachievers that have no way of dealing with themselves or each other [in respect to their sexuality],” said Martz. He later added in an e-mail that the lack of “available models” is one reason as to why GLBT students are unprepared for serious relationships once they come to Whitman, since there is not a queer community.

In contrast to Martz, other GLBT students are looking for a community that is more casual.
“What I want to say is that there is no sex scene,” said sophomore Marcos*. “With people like me, we just meet, bend over, and do the deed.” When Marcos arrived on the Whitman campus, he was generally dissatisfied with the gay men on campus who were looking for a serious relationship.

Instead of dealing with the difficulties of a serious relationship on campus, Marcos retreated to the Internet, striking up virtual relationships on the Web sites Adam4Adam and Gay.com.

“I’m so busy with school, and I just don’t want to deal with people. Virtual relationships are easier because they’re more accessible. You can log on and fuck with people,” Marcos said.

Martz also found it easier to delve into casual relationships rather than serious relationships before he found his current boyfriend. “Here at Whitman, you find that it’s just easier to get drunk at parties, find someone and then have sex. That’s just the nature of the party atmosphere and sexual culture at Whitman in general, which also goes for the queer contingent on campus.”

Freshman Martin* explained via e-mail that the size and location of the campus factored into the small GLBT presence at Whitman. “The thought of dating and community had not occurred to me while applying to colleges, as I still wasn’t sure whether to remain in closet or not. If it had factored in, as I’m sure it does with most GLBT applicants, size and proximity to a city would create a much stronger pull. It’s kind of lonely out here, but the students here are amazing even if the dating pool is almost non-existent.”

Martin takes a cautious approach when it comes to dating on campus. “I’ve met lots of people I’m interested in, but I don’t approach, or for that matter, even allow myself to get too interested, unless I know they are gay. I just generally don’t enjoy the feeling of liking guys that aren’t biologically . . . capable of liking me back. I am actually pretty ‘out’ right now, most people who know me know that I’m gay, but I don’t feel the need to announce [it] to the world.”

Despite the perception that the GLBT community is small, some students are working to help make it more accessible. The Queer Beer Bonanza, hosted behind Anderson Hall in The Hospital, gathers most of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students on campus for drinks and dancing.

“Parties like Queer Beer helped the most in making me realize that gays do exist on campus,” said Martin.

*Names have been changed to protect the identities of those in the article.

This week in ASWC

This week in ASWC Finance Chair Ajay Abraham and his finance committee released the preliminary budget for the 2007-’08 year. The Whitman College Pioneer had its budget both increased and decreased at the same time, despite steadily rising costs in production, as the policy committee amends the by-laws to ensure that the Pioneer receives eight percent of the total ASWC budget per year.

The joint session held on Sunday was especially eventful. A number of by-law changes were passed. These changes split the job of communications director into two positions, creating a secretary to handle the business of minute keeping and club paperwork, among other things. However, the position of Communications Director raises some distinct problems.

One of the specified jobs of the new Communications Director will be to submit a weekly column in the Pioneer as well as produce a regular radio show or podcast on the business of ASWC. I understand the goal of this Executive Council has been to increase the transparency of ASWC, but this is too far.

Press releases are useful, but when an organization attempts to fully control their message by publishing their “official message” as news written by someone within the organization, this breeds mistrust and undermines the credibility of the publication accepting and publishing those articles. It is my hope that an independent reporter will continue to cover ASWC and that the Whitman Pioneer will not accept “news” that can’t possibly even make a pretense of objectivity. It is also my hope that ASWC will eliminate this requirement.

Last but by no means least, Senator Shea Dunda is under investigation for impeachment. The Oversight Committee informed the joint session yesterday and passed out a petition that required the signature of at least one fifth of the Senate to start proceedings. Among the signers of this petition were Senior Senators Thomas Miller and Jay Heath and Junior Senators Gabrielle Arrowood and Maile Zeng.

The charges brought against Senator Dunda by the Oversight Committee include poor attendance at both Senate and Programming Committee meetings, despite the fact that in their report they admit to not keeping attendance records. They also charge Dunda with being derelict in his duties in areas like organizing and attending Senate forums.

A notable abstention from the petition for impeachment was Sophomore Senator Bryce McKay who refused to sign on the grounds that Oversight cannot penalize a Senator for actions that they have no official record of. This reporter agrees with Senator McKay. Not only is this committee standing on dubious judicial ground but they are also going to waste an incredible amount of time impeaching a Senior who is three weeks from graduation.

If Senator Dunda’s conduct was so abhorrent to this committee, why did it take them so long to act?

Con: Inherent dangers of sex make intercourse more risky

Casual sex is dangerous.

People diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are on the rise. According to the National Coalition of STD Directors (ncsddc.org), the reason HIV and STD cases are on the rise is because in the United States “people do not fear HIV/AIDS as much as they used to, and there is more casual sex in society.” These days, approximately one out of four women and one out of five men is infected with an STD. One out of four people in the U.S. will contract a STD by the time they reach adulthood.

These statistics are incredibly high. If you have casual sex, you are at very high risk that you will
contract an STD.

I doubt that every time a person has casual sex, they test their new partner for STDs that night or ever at all. Rather, people who have casual sex like to put those thoughts in the back of their minds and think, “It will never happen to me.”

It might not. Chances are, however, that it will.

Condoms are not foolproof. If you ever read the back of a Trojan condom, you’ll find the following disclaimer: “If used properly, latex condoms will help to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV infection (AIDS) and many other sexually transmitted diseases. Also highly effective against pregnancy.”

If used properly. Herein lies a risk. A lot of people do not use condoms properly. Partners are quick to put them on to “get it on” and forget that if the condom is not put on properly, the chances that it will break increase. If you’re having lots of casual sex, chances are you will become less likely to pay extra attention to the condom since you might think, “Well, since it’s never broken before, why this time?”

Even further, there are many STDs that condoms—even when properly used—don’t necessarily prevent from spreading.

Latex condoms will help to reduce risk. Condoms don’t eliminate risk. They only help to reduce it. If condoms are 99 percent foolproof, that means that they don’t work one time out of 100. The more sex you have, the more chances you’re giving the condom to not work.

According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, one in three women get pregnant at least once before age 20, and eight in 10 teen pregnancies are unplanned and out of wedlock. Although these statistics have gotten better in recent years due to teens being more knowledgeable of contraceptives, the statistics are still very high.

The aftermath of casual sex is also a problem. Sex might feel good at the moment, but afterwards you could experience a number of things: awkwardness, regret, a lost friendship or even lost respect for yourself.

Here’s a note to you women out there: Giving away your body freely does not make you more powerful. If you think you’re playing and winning the sex game by using a guy for only one night, you’re wrong. They’re using you too.

Let’s stop lying to ourselves! Casual sex can be very degrading to both parties.

Being known as a person who engages in casual sex is in no way a good thing. People love to be special and unique. If you’re someone who already has had plenty of casual sex, then how can you possibly make someone else feel special and unique sexually?

As unfair as this might seem, men are more likely to pursue serious relationships with women who reserve sex for marriage. According to Steven Rhoads, a gender studies researcher, “Men often prize promiscuous sex in the short term, but they want faithful wives. . .If a man finds a woman hard to get, he will sense that she is more likely to be faithful after marriage.”

Today, we live in a culture that makes it very difficult for us to choose between right and wrong and we fear being judgmental when we do. Society now tells us that divorce is the natural end for marriages, promiscuity is okay and even “cool” (case in point: “Promiscuous Girl” by Nelly Furtado), it’s old fashioned to associate sex with marriage and love, and that sex should be casual rather than meaningful. We, men and women alike, need to overcome this fear and stand up for what is right. Whether you’re religious or not, having casual sex is wrong because it’s spreading disease in our society.

Get tested. Get your partner tested. People have lied and others have died. Casual sex is no joke. It’s not fun when you have warts all over your private parts or are dying in a hospital bed somewhere.
Take sex seriously, before it takes you.

No Frisbee necessary: alternative games for sunny spring days

Frisbees seem to have a monopoly on Ankeny field. For the sake of diversity, here are some alternatives to the ever-ubiquitous flying disc.

One such alternative is the game featured in the well-loved story of “Alice in Wonderland”: croquet. Croquet is played with two to six people divided into two teams. The players set up nine wickets into two diamonds, with the middle wicket as the point connecting the two diamonds. At the other point of each diamond of wickets, there is a wooden stake driven into the ground. Each player has a different colored ball, so as to keep track of which player’s ball is where, and a wooden mallet. The players take turns hitting the balls through the wickets. Every time the ball makes it through a wicket, the player gets another hit. A team wins when it is the first to have all the players of the team drive their balls through the course and hit the wooden stake.

Bocce ball is another option. Bocce ball is played with eight bocce balls and one small target ball called the “jack” or the “pallino.” The game can be played in pairs or teams. A player tosses the pallino and it stays where thrown as long as it lands between the centerline and the backline. The pallino then becomes the target and the player that threw the pallino throws a bocce ball and tries to get as close to the pallino as possible. Then the other team gets the chance to bowl. From then on, the team that does not have the ball closest to the pallino gets the chance to throw closer to the pallino, by bowling each of the four balls once. Points are made by the team with the closer bocce ball to the pallino. Points of this kind are counted at the end to determine the winner of the game.

Badminton is usually played in teams of two, each with one racket and a birdie. The object is to continually hit the birdie over the net without letting it hit the net or the ground. The game starts with a diagonal serve and then the teams hit the birdie back and forth until the birdie falls to the ground. Teams acquire points when the birdie hits the ground on the other team’s side of the net. Games are usually won as the best two out of three.

If these don’t sound exciting enough, one can always fly a kite, play marco polo, or even enjoy one of the most elementary games: tag.

Students celebrate Earth Day

Despite the slight chill and ominous clouds, many people gathered on Ankeny in order to celebrate Earth Day in an event held by Campus Greens. The day started with service projects and finished with festivities held on Ankeny. The event featured the Eighth Arm of Vishnu, root beer floats and tie-dying in the afternoon.

“We hoped to have more people at the service projects, but we had a pretty good turn-out and hopefully we’ll figure out a better way to get people to come out next year,” said Zoe Plakias, co-president of Campus Greens, of the approximately 70 volunteers.
“The service projects were about getting people out into Walla Walla and forming bonds with community members and each other,” said Campus Greens member Jesse Phillips.

The service projects centered on stream restoration but varied in location and activity. Many members of Campus Greens felt the service projects were critical to show participants that they could do more than just talk about saving the earth, they could take action.

“Earth Day is supposed to be a celebration, not a time to feel guilty or get mad at other people,” said Plakias. “Too often people associate environmentalism strictly with activism and forget that it’s also about celebration.” Plakias hopes that the event will show other students how fun environmentalism can be and hopefully recruit some new members.

Earth Day is the largest secular modern-day celebration in the world. It was first organized in 1970 by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson and activist Denis Hays. They called for an Environmental Teach-in to be held on April 22 to demonstrate popular public support for an environmentalist agenda.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency characterized the years leading up to Earth Day as “a time when rivers caught fire and cities were hidden under dense clouds of smoke.” In 1962, Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” exposed the hazards of the pesticide DDT and helped set the stage for a new way of thinking about humanity’s effect on the environment. Environmental crises such as the Cuyahoga River of Ohio catching on fire and the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill won the attention of the nation and focused it towards activism.

“Earth Day was in the middle of a great deal of anti-war protesting that left a lot of people bruised. When Earth Day came around, it wasn’t about being against something, it was about ‘working for a better relationship with Mother Earth,’ as funny as that sounds today,” said Environmental Humanities professor Don Snow.

Snow was a sophomore at Colorado State University when Earth Day “hit college campuses with a green fury.” Although conservationists such as John Muir and Gifford Pinchot had initiated the movement to protect public lands, the idea of being ‘green’ was an entirely new concept.

“Earth Day engendered the biggest set of changes in my lifetime,” said Snow. “The single greatest legacy of Earth Day is the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).”

NEPA requires federal agencies to consider the environmental impacts of their proposed actions. This gave birth to the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Not only does NEPA require agencies to thoroughly research their environmental impact, it also requires that the research results be made public. Today those laws are called “sunshine laws” as they “let light shine” on government processes.

The NEPA also made provisions for lawsuits. “It wasn’t just that now you knew about the environmental impact, but also that you could now act on it,” said Snow on the new regulations.

Since 1970, a lot of important regulation has been put into place. This includes regulation that we often take for granted to day such as the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. Despite these new laws, many still think the movement has a long way to go.

“We need a new Earth Day with an issue to re-vitalize the movement,” said Snow. He believes that issue is climate change. Snow thinks that it is our generation that will have to confront flooding coastal cities, advancing deserts and shifts in food production, among other things.

Sociology and Environmental Studies Professor Kari Norgaard agrees. “Young people today have one of the greatest challenges but also one of the greatest opportunities to make change. I think Earth Day has the potential to explode,” said Norgaard.

Trees down on campus raise questions, concerns

Even if you don’t consider yourself a tree hugger, chances are you like trees. It may be presumptuous of me to assume that, but let’s pretend for a moment. Say you’re one of those people who does like trees—big, leafy, green ones. You like sitting in the shade they provide on hot afternoons. You like watching them sway in the breeze or stand perfectly still outside your window. You like how they make oxygen and provide habitat. And you really love climbing them.

You probably want to keep doing those things, and so do I. Once upon a time, former Whitman President Tom Cronin championed the planting of trees on campus. He tried (and often succeeded) in planting 100 trees per year. Now, that rate has dropped. Not only that, but we are cutting trees unnecessarily. The college claims they are diseased and old. However, for the construction of the new fine arts building, mature, healthy trees that weren’t interfering with the building or foundation were taken from the periphery. By a miracle, one of these trees was saved. It now stands alone along the creek, its neighbors all cut down in the name of progress.

Are we in danger of losing more trees? The fine arts building is just an example of what may be to come. As the college builds and expands, more trees will be in danger. We are already losing locusts in the amphitheater and Narnia to age and disease. If we cut down our healthy trees too, where will that leave us? Will we plant more grass and install more sprinklers? If we make good decisions and continue to plant trees that are fit for our landscape, hopefully that will never happen.

I am not suggesting that George Bridges become a champion of trees (though that would be nice), but I do believe we must all step up to the plate if we want trees to be a part of our campus. The Trees and Landscaping Committee is a group of students, faculty, and staff that advises the College on tree and landscaping issues. The meetings are open to anyone on campus, and though the group makes no final decisions, it is a sounding board for those of us who don’t have to pretend we like trees. As we strive to achieve climate neutrality and a healthy planet, planting trees is a logical and easy way to continue to offset our carbon emissions and preserve habitat and biodiversity.

The Trees and Landscaping meets once a month in Science 138. The next meeting will be at noon on Tuesday, May 1.

Electricity’s story will shock you

It is vital to appreciate where your most basic resources come from, simply for the sake of being conscious of the world you live in. But even if you don’t relish consciousness for its own sake, there are certain resources you can’t get away with not knowing about and still be able to understand urgent topics of public debate.

Until recently, I believed the whole process of generating electricity to be an unapproachable enigma, and even the call to appreciate my world didn’t motivate me to research it. Now I just need to understand concretely what people are talking about when they discuss renewable energy, carbon emissions from power plants and the increasingly greener source of Whitman’s electricity. But I can only begin to sort these things out once I know the basics about how power generation works in my neighborhood.

The basic consideration regarding power generation is the source of the energy that moves the power generator. For Pacific Power, from whom Whitman and residents of Walla Walla purchase their electricity, there are three ways of generating electricity: thermal power (coal and natural gas), hydro power and wind power.

Pacificorp, the electric company of which Pacific Power is part, owns power plants in several Western states that produce electricity for customers in the region.

According to Pacificorp spokesman Dave Kvamme, the power we use on the Whitman campus could come from as far away as Utah, Wyoming, Montana or the dams in Western Washington and Oregon, and some of it certainly comes from the wind power projects a few miles down Highway 12. Pacificorp also purchases 20 percent of the power it distributes from various government-owned sources, such as from dams along the Colombia and Snake rivers owned by the Bonneville Power Administration.

When Kvamme told me how spread out these sources are and how many miles of long-distance transmission line (over 15,000) Pacificorp uses to transmit power across states, I had to ask why power plants aren’t more localized. Doesn’t it take more energy to transmit electricity that far? Kvamme pointed out that while there can be line losses over long distances, it is more energy efficient to keep the power plants closer to the fuel source. If Pacificorp had to ship coal to a plant in Walla Walla rather than transmit electricity from the original source of the coal, even more energy would be used.

Pacificorp owns 13 thermal power plants and is a partial owner of six, from which it produces most of its electricity. Pacificorp plants are collectively capable of generating 8,500 megawatts of electricity at one time, 72 percent of which is fueled by coal and natural gas. To put this figure in perspective, 8,500 megawatts would provide electricity for 85 million light bulbs.

Thermal power generation works by burning coal or natural gas to spin a turbine. In coal-fueled plants, coal is pulverized and burned in a furnace to boil water, and the pressure from the steam spins the turbine. The spinning turbine connects to a generator, which turns magnets to induce AC power. In the case of natural gas-fueled plants, the heat from the burning gas does not create steam, but powers and turns the turbine directly.
All forms of power generation rely on spinning turbines, but only thermal plants use carbon-emitting fuels to turn them. Pacificorp also relies on energy from hydropower and wind power facilities, which eventually connect to the same power grid as electricity from thermal sources. Five percent of Pacificorp’s total output comes from hydropower facilities and one to two percent comes from wind power.

The breakdown of Pacificorp’s energy resources is fairly comparable to that of the U.S. as a whole. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists Web site, nearly 50 percent of electricity generated in 2004 was fueled by coal and 18 percent by natural gas, while 6.5 percent came from hydropower and 2.3 percent from other renewables. Pacificorp does not own nuclear power plants, which made up 20 percent of total electricity produced in the U.S. in 2004.

Pacificorp is trying aggressively to market and produce more wind power, which is the aim of the Blue Sky program in which Whitman currently participates. Participants purchase power generated by wind sources for an additional $1.95 per 100 kilowatt-hour block. The additional money funds further development of wind power generators.

The wind sources for our power region are located closer to Whitman compared with many of the thermal plants. Our wind power comes from Pacificorp wind facilities in Umatilla and Walla Walla County; Gilliam County, Ore.; Kennewick, Wash.; Arlington, Wyo. and Evanston, Wyo.
When asked what percentage of Pacificorp’s total electricity could feasibly come from renewable sources in the near future, Kvamme said that there is an optimal amount of renewable energy that can be integrated, but that “having too much wind power works against you; the wind doesn’t always blow.” Kvamme said that Pacificorp is aiming to increase the generating capacity of its wind facilities to 1,400 megawatts by 2015. But in order to meet the demand of energy consumers, power companies need to have a more reliable source than the fickle wind. “Not in my lifetime do I see coal and natural gas going away,” Kvamme said.

No hesitations: ‘Appropriateness’ : The Eighth Deadly Sin. Literally.

I abhor the word “appropriate” more than almost any other word. It cloaks all manner of sins and all variety of ineffectual and frightened non-action. It is a word used most often to stifle natural reactions, like hysterical giggling at funerals, and meaningful reactions to difficult situations.

The word “appropriate” is governed by the despot of custom, which, most of the time, is controlled by the God of Popular Opinion, however the thing is “popular opinion” is a totally bullshit reason for doing anything. A number of things are considered popular that many of us would never consider doing. In the case of Whitman, bathing comes to mind.

The greatest events of human history have always, ALWAYS spit in the eye of “popular opinion.” Our own history is littered with positive examples. The Emancipation Proclamation, The renewal of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (Please God, let this be true) and any and all contemporary movements for equal civil rights for marginalized groups.

Today, we all bitch and moan about the state of American politics. We complain that the American political system is driven by marketing techniques, which sacrifices almost all connection between those running for office and their potential constituents. Yet, in our own little bio-spheres, we fail to step out of those same tropes. We let popularity make our decisions for us. (Quantity always taking precedence over quality, appearance over meaning). As my time here at Whitman College winds down I grow more and more depressed by my fellow students who have internalized the consumer instinct so deeply that they can’t even see when it is influencing them.

When you place “appropriateness” over substance, quite simply, people die. This happened to countless black people in the segregated South during Jim Crow, when ambulances were forced to drive miles out of the way to black hospitals, with the victim often dying in transit, after passing several “whites only” hospitals. (This example also points to an interesting contradiction in “appropriateness.” Which comes first, the black patient or the Hippocratic oath?). When we wait a week to discuss gun control after an appalling event that points to a cavernous hole in our firearm policy (and our relationship to violence in general), people die.

It is never “too soon” for meaning. It is never “too soon” to say something of substance, and it is possible to both emote and feel and have an impetus behind the sentiment.

Restaurant review: Applebee’s

Applebee’s is a disappointment to the neighborhood.

The restaurant is an American staple—the “American grill & bar” of every neighborhood. “Eatin’ good in the neighborhood,” its slogan says: a flat-out lie, if you ask me, about the local Applebee’s.

I explored the neighborly charm of our 2-year-old Applebee’s, and I found a few things worthy of discussion. Most notably, the wall decorations: an array of poor-quality posters that feed customers’ nostalgia.

Jewel and the boys of “O, Brother, Where Art Thou?” in the hallway to the bathroom; Martin Short, Tom Cruise and Drew Barrymore above the windows; and, behold, Harper Joy Theatre’s season calendar behind a booth.

This Whitman paraphernalia on the wall seemed a bit out of place, though, given the customer base was mostly local. There were a lot of young families and older couples, but few Whitman students, if any.

Serving soggy, moldy lettuce in an Oriental Chicken Salad ($7), stale, tasteless iced tea, and miniscule portions of meat under the guise of a “Weight Watchers” choice ($12), however, does not seem inviting, hospitable, or appropriate given the that we paid them to serve us the food advertised on the menu, a challenge they did not meet with success.

It is difficult to make deep-fried onions or cheese taste bad, however, so if you find yourself at this Applebee’s, do yourself a favor and stick with the Onion Peels ($6) or Sticks ($7). And if you are Vegetarian or Vegan, do not come to Applebee’s hoping for a feast. You can order a salad sans the chicken, or the appetizer Veggie Patch Pizza ($6), or your choice of soup ($4), most of which have cream bases.

And if you are watching your weight, luckily for you they have a Weight Watchers Menu. It includes lunch and dinner choices ($7-$10) marked with the point system that Weight Watchers dieters follow. But the Italian Chicken & Portobello Sandwich ($8) off this menu was dry and the portion small for the price.

Applebee’s menu was made, in part, with the help of celebrity chef Tyler Florence, but perhaps Florence made a mistake in allowing his name on this menu that does not deliver that which it proposes.

The only good thing: the service. It was quick, pleasant, and smiling for the duration of our dinner. It seemed a busy night, but the waitress arrived in good time to take our orders and the food was out quickly as well. And it is difficult to argue with convenience, so their “Carside To Go” program, which allows you to call in an order and pick it up 20 minutes later (a step away from a drive-thru, really) is very successful.

Overall, I suggest trying one of the local eateries over Applebee’s any day. End up at Applebee’s because it is the only place open, or because some twist of fate demands your presence—not because you want to.

If You Go:
Located: 1604 Plaza Way
Phone: (509) 526-0075
Price: $$ / $$$$$
Rating: H / HHHHH

Walla Walla hosts bicycle tour

The first Tour of Walla Walla had 68 riders. Now, with nearly 500 cyclists from across the nation, the event has grown into a three-day event.

Last weekend cyclists arrived in Walla Walla to race in the 11th annual Tour of Walla Walla. As a stage race, the Tour of Walla Walla spanned three days with four events including two road races, a time trial and a criterium that took place right in downtown Walla Walla.

The event brought all categories of riders—both men and women, from beginners to pros as well as junior and masters races. The race took place throughout the Walla Walla valley with the total miles ridden amounting to over 150 miles.

The Tour of Walla Walla was not without complications. Race Director and co-owner of Allegro, Steve Rapp told the Union Bulletin, “A major challenge has been finding enough motel space.”

Some of the races took place in and around the city of Waitsburg. Rapp described the city to the Union Bulletin as “taking us under their wing. They have embraced the event. We’re enjoying partnering with them. They’ve been wonderful to work with.”

Organizers gave away cash amounting to $7,500 and merchandise to racers to promote the race. The top prize for a single race was $400 with opportunities to win more.

“A major challenge has been finding enough motel spaces,” said Steve Rapp.

The event was sponsored by numerous local businesses in the valley including bike shops and wineries as well as Tourism Walla Walla in the hopes that the Tour would bring in tourism revenue.

For the professional 1-2 categories, the winner of the Tour of Walla Walla was Boise-based team Bob’s Bicycles’ Matt Weyen, who finished the tour in eight hours, one minute and two seconds.

First-year Duncan McGovern raced with professional 1-2 riders who are some of the best riders in the region. McGovern, who races for Whitman College and is also on development team Husatonic Wheel Club, finished 19th overall during the weekend—a mere five minutes 17 seconds behind the first-place finisher.

Sam Johnson, a Whitman alumnus who also raced on the Whitman cycling team, placed third overall. Johnson was instrumental in taking Whitman to Nationals the previous two years and in winning the championship.

For more information about the Tour of Walla Walla and results, visit allegrocyclery.com/

Whittie of the Week: Fine arts maverick

One the night of Saturday, April 14 someone decided to tear down the brightly colored web of pipe cleaners hanging on the bushes in front of the library. The artist, Wynne Auld, wasn’t bothered by the destruction of her carefully-constructed project. Her cheerful, anything-goes mentality is what makes Wynne Auld this week’s Whittie of the Week.

“It was probably just a drunk person having some fun,” she said of her damaged piece. Auld has decided to “rebirth it as a Phoenix.”

But the newly-rebuilt piece doesn’t resemble a Phoenix. It’s not supposed to resemble anything at all.

“Sometimes it’s really hard for us to process things without categorizing them. Everyone keeps asking me, ‘What’s it for?’ or ‘What’s it supposed to be?’ Art often times refuses to let us categorize it and that’s really hard for a lot of people to deal with. This is simply supposed to be beautiful.”

The project is for an Intro to Studio and Design class taught by Ben Bloch. The assignment was to make something using duplicity. Auld chose pipe cleaners as her medium. The idea was to merely change the space rather than to come up with something conceptual.

Auld felt nervous about putting her piece in a public setting. She understood why someone might tear it down, sending a message that the area is their space too. Bloch wasn’t so understanding, asking, “No one is defacing the Marcus Whitman statue, so why did they tear down your web?”

“That unique pondering of a single, specified object is one thing that appeals to me about the sculpture project. We all have ideas zooming through our minds like invisible satellite cell phone signals bouncing around. No one knows what other people are thinking about. But any individuals who saw the web at the same time, whether it was from across Ankeny or right underneath it were pondering the same object. It took them out of their normal routine to a very present self,” wrote Auld through e-mail.

Auld grew up in Prosser, Washington, on a cherry and apple orchard. She describes herself as being “a haggard little girl always covered in cherry juice.”
After high school, Auld won a sponsorship through her local Rotary club to study abroad for a year. Auld chose to go to Holland.

“I wanted my own experience, to do something different from my twin sister. To have my own language and cultural identity,” said Auld. In Holland, Auld lived in an agricultural community in what used to be a lake until they pumped the water out of it. She took classes and traveled, especially enjoying her time in Amsterdam.

“Partying, to me, is about the excitement of other people. It is a celebration of mystery and dancing. It’s being entertained by others. That’s what I found in Amsterdam, and my greatest delight was to be inconspicuous among them. Amsterdam, like many European capitals, is filled with immigrants, and I was one of them,” wrote Auld through e-mail.

At Whitman, Auld immediately felt accepted. “So many people at Whitman come from different places and life journeys; I really like that,” she said.

Auld became interested in folk dancing her freshman year. She is currently in a folk dancing club of both Whitman students and community members. Last week they put on a Midnight Waltz where “people pranced around in gowns and suits.”

“I hear about things and I go experience them. Once awake, I survey the outside, like a greeting, how are you today? The day has a mood, too. I interact with it like I interact with anyone else. Sometimes, on the gloomiest day, I have to wear a fluorescent yellow sweater. It glows on a mixed grey palette. I like the idea of wearing a palette, something that others digest uniquely,” wrote Auld.

Campus a cappella groups: Schwa and T-Tones tell all

In addition to preparation for this spring’s choral contest, Whitman a cappella groups Schwa and the Testostertones have hopes of taking their show on the road.

Schwa, Whitman’s coed a cappella group, consists of 15 members, including four basses, three tenors, four altos and four sopranos. “Voice parts are sort of a general guide line as opposed to a solid rule. Each arrangement requires different things,” said junior Noah Bronstein, a member of Schwa

Sophomore Laura Gibson, who has been performing with Schwa for a year agrees. “Depending on the arrangement of the song, sometimes the song will have six parts, but technically only have four voice parts so you’ll have to divide it into sopranos one or two or tenors one or two,” said Gibson

Schwa’s membership is not limited to music majors. “A good portion of our members hadn’t really sung before, and then tried out, and happened to be good enough to get in. You can still try out and get in. It’s pretty open,” Bronstein said.

“There’s a lot of musical talent not just in the music department,” Gibson said.
Schwa members work to arrange songs for the group to perform. “Lately, Lee Mills has been arranging all of our songs,” Gibson said, “he arranged our medley for choral contest and he arranged ‘Fallen’ for us.”

Arranging performances for the group demands particular attention be paid to the song.

You have to make sure [the song] has enough complexity and works well enough that it will fit a group that sings in at least a four part harmony,” said Gibson. “It helps a lot if there’s a driving bass line. ‘Fallen’ is a really good song for an a cappella group to sing because it’s really thick with harmonies and it’s naturally layered.”

At the end of May, Schwa will be heading into the studio.

“We are recording everything we have. I think it’s going to be between ten and thirteen songs,” said Gibson.

In the near future, Schwa hopes to perform at local wineries during tastings, and they have a tour in the works for next year. They hope to go to the east coast—Boston or Washington, D.C.—or otherwise California.

Currently, Schwa has been preparing for the choral contest, practicing four times a week.

Also preparing for the choral contest is Whitman’s all-male a cappella group, the Testostertones.

According to junior Jeff Wilson, a Testostertone tenor, the group consists of 12 to 14 men, singing bass, baritone, tenor-one and tenor-two harmonies.

“Some of our songs go to as many as six or seven part harmonies and we divide it up,” said Wilson.

The Testostertones have been preparing new arrangements which play on their own individual personalities. They are also hoping to incorporate hip-hop music into their repitoire.

At a recent competition in Eugene, the Testostertones’ efforts to play to their strengths fared well. “Our style was completely different than everyone else competing in that genre. They were all really polished and all had cheesy choreography,” said Wilson. “Dru Johnston went out on stage and did a funny thing, and we sang our song without choreography or anything. It was really well-received.”

editorial: Livejournals suck. Add me as a Friend?

Confession: I have a Livejournal.

I’m not proud of my Livejournal. I don’t parade my Livejournal about town as the Livejournal to read, full of top-notch writing and scandalous facts. I just have one.

Lots of people have Livejournals, so I’m surprised that I have such trouble admitting that I am one of the many. I have no qualms admitting that I am one of the many who has a car, or a record player, or a “Gilmore Girls” collection. Well, I have a little trouble with that last one. But I digress.
I am not the only one ashamed of her Livejournal. When I bring mine up in casual conversation a common response is, “Oh my God. You have one of those things?” followed by a look of utter disgust, a brief pause and finally, “You should add me to your list of Friends.”

The fact is this: We narcissistically want other people to read our diaries.

For example, when I began documenting my inner thoughts at the age of 11 in a paperback journal, I fantasized about my future children reading all about my life and thinking I was cool. I imagined my sister pulling it from its obvious hiding place under my bed and poring over the emotional conflicts I had with my chemistry teacher.

Years later, I got a Livejournal, which really helped. Now I not only had the assurance that my intelligent thoughts were available to the vast electronic void of the Internet, but people could even leave comments, telling me exactly how they felt about my hopes and despairs. Delicious.
I have gotten very vain about my Livejournal: the background image is a Photoshop creation of several round pictures of myself looking hot. I like to post more flattering pictures of myself and my friends and my pets and my family and my boyfriend, all with accompanying captions. I always spellcheck, never post while drunk or otherwise inebriated and frequently delete posts I feel are overly-dramatic.

But I’m not proud of any of that. I know my ex-boyfriends read my Livejournal—I want them to know how I continue to be cute and funny and better-off-without-them. I know my arch nemesis Megan Nonsan from high school reads it, too, and I want her to see how successful I have become. She has not become successful, I know from reading her Livejournal: She has just become fat.

I recognize my vanity and narcissism and I frequently consider taking my Livejournal down, but I can never bring myself to do it.
Although I’m posting less and less these days.

I remember a time when I would post two or three times a day, and then I’d call my best friend demanding, “Have you read my Livejournal yet today? It’s really funny. I talk about you in it.”

Which brings me to another reason people have Livejournals: to read about themselves. There are people who pull up their friends’ Livejournals and then run a search for their own names.

Of course, that’s an over-simplification, because more common than the desire to read about oneself is the desire to read about the lives of those one envies or despises.

Because people often post on Livejournal looking for a little support in their oh-so-depressing lives, reading the Livejournals of ex-boyfriends can be extremely satisfying. Take, for instance, this entry from an ex-boyfriend of mine: “I’m depressed and if I can’t get the counseling I need things will be getting much worse before they get better.”

I, at least, get a perverse pleasure out of this kind of thing.

I guess, when it comes down to it, I can’t really see how Livejournal could possibly be used for good. Occasionally, I post entries in which I list all of my friends by name and then a few things I love about them. But I really only do that to get Brownie points from those I’ve lost touch with. There’s nothing noble about it.

Livejournal is just the fattening food and Us Weekly’s of the new millennium. It’s unhealthy as fuck—but God, does it ever feel good.

Health Center helps students make informed sexual decisions.

Whitman doesn’t flaunt its sex life. In general, the campus is fairly modest about its sexual activity—but that does not mean it doesn’t exist; Whitman students are still sexually active.

There are condom cups in the bathrooms of all dormitories. The RAs of every section are required to pick up a large bag at the beginning of the year, and keep the cup replenished all year long. In fact, the Whitman health center has to re-order condoms to refill these cups.

Whitman’s liberal sex policy allows students to make their own decisions about sex—there are no curfews or rules about where you can or cannot sleep. The Health Center is the sex resource center on campus, with everything from condoms to HPV vaccines available. They make these resources are readily available to students so that students can take extra precautions and make smart decisions about sex.

The Health Center also disperses the morning after pill to anyone who seeks it, with no prescription needed. Ellen Collette, Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner and the Health Center Director, said, “…here at the health center we have a protocol under which the nurses can dispense the morning after pill” without questions asked.

The Health Center also offers free pap smears and birth control prescriptions.
Collette said their main goal is to “encourage Whitman to have safe sex. And to think before they have sex. We try to keep people healthy and happy.”

However, despite how many preventative measures are at the disposal of Whitman students, safe sex isn’t simply guaranteed. Even with such a small student body, sexually transmitted diseases are by no means unusual or infrequent.

In the last three years, the most common STDs on campus were HPV, herpes and chlamydia. Fortunately, the least likely cases are gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV/AIDS.

Collette said that it wasn’t even uncommon to see students find out they are pregnant. If they decide to have an abortion, the Health Center will arrange it with Planned Parenthood. “We have driven a student up there when there wasn’t any means for transportation. It was hard because we lost an employee for a day, but the student didn’t have any other way to get there.” The Health Center makes sure each student is made to feel comfortable and taken care of.

However, despite very open and available sex policy at Whitman, the sexual maladies on this campus are similar to every other college campus across the nation. Where there is college, there is freedom, there is alcohol and there is sex. Needless to say, this is sometimes a dangerous equation. “I think the thing I have been most shocked about is every single case I have seen where there has been sexual misconduct or rape, there has been alcohol involved. There hasn’t been one that I have seen that hasn’t involved alcohol. It’s sad,” said Collette.

School district effectively teaches native Spanish speakers

At Green Park Elementary, having a strong bilingual program is mandatory. With 50 percent of its students learning English as a second language, the school works hard to prevent its high-risk native Spanish speakers from falling behind academically. The school’s efforts to integrate native Spanish speakers are immediately apparent; a sign hangs over the door bidding welcome in both Spanish and English, and several of the secretaries are native Spanish speakers.

Most impressive, however, is the school’s extensive bilingual program. Called the “Sheltered Model,” it is a program used by many of the elementary schools in the Walla Walla school district, including Blue Ridge and Prospect Point.

The goal of the “Sheltered Model,” as described by the Walla Walla Public Schools Elementary Handbook, is to teach students English gradually while continuing to help them grow in the acquisition of their native language. Thus, rather than being thrown into English speaking classes, native Spanish speakers take Spanish speaking classes up until the third grade. During these classes, English is gradually increased until they are put into regular English speaking classes at the fourth grade level.

According to Mike Lambert, Green Park’s principal, the “Sheltered Model” is ideal for preventing native Spanish speakers from falling behind academically. “Our native Spanish speakers walk into Green Park as some of our most at-risk students,” said Lambert. “When they walk out of our school, they are some of are most advantaged students. Since they know two languages, they gain the upper-hand.”

Proof of the “Sheltered Model’s” effectiveness for teaching academics can be seen in the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) exam scores of non-native English speakers at Green Park. Despite taking the exam in English, Spanish speakers at Green Park typically score equal to English speakers on the reading portion of the exam.

The downside to the “Sheltered Model” is the lack of interaction it promotes between native and non-native English speakers. Since the students are separated into different classrooms until the fourth grade, they do not get to know each other as friends and are often, as Green Park Spanish teacher Mrs. Hobbs said, “seen playing in separate groups on the playground.” In order to combat this, Green Park has started focusing on getting native and non-native English speakers to spend more time together in academic environments.

“We have started integrating all of their pull-out classes. P.E., music and library are all done with both native and non-native English speakers together,” stated Lambert.

This has helped tremendously in persuading non-native and native English speakers to play together on the playground. According to Hobbs, however, “it is still not enough.”

Hobbs believes a better model for social interaction is the “Two-Way Language Enrichment Program” used by Sharpstein Elementary. At Sharpstein Elementary, all native and non-native English speakers are put into the same classrooms where English and Spanish are taught in equal parts throughout the day. This, according to Mrs. Hobbs, promotes more interaction between native and non-native speakers: “Since they are in the same classes together, they work together and become friends.”

“But,” said Lambert, “the Two-Way Language Enrichment Program does not do as well academically. Non-native English speakers at Sharpstein don’t score as high on the WASL as Green Park’s non-native English speakers.”

In the end, both models have their strengths and their weaknesses.

“You’re never going to have it perfect,” said Lambert. “All you can do is make the situation as ideal as possible.”

Students support cancer victims through breast casting

“I’ve never used papier-mâché before, and the first time I do, it’s on my breasts!” said first-year Michela Corcorran, participating in the semi-annual breast casting event.

On Friday, April 20, and Sunday., April 22, from 1-5 p.m., the Fine Arts House and the Community Service House teamed up to offer the Whitman community the chance to participate in breast casting. It cost five dollars a person and all proceeds went to charity.

“The money goes to charity for breast cancer,” said Co-Op R.A. Kari Berkas. “This year we chose to donate to Pink Shamrock, which is a local foundation.”

The event was open to both men and women. Breast casting for women and pec casting for men involved participants going to the Fine Arts House at certain time slots they signed up for. After removing clothing on their upper bodies, participants coated their chests with Vaseline. They then used papier-mâché to cover the selected area that they wanted to cast. After the area dried, participants removed the casts, and either took them home or left them at the FAH until a designated painting time.

The event was motivated by multiple considerations.

“It’s a great way to support positive self image,” said FAH R.A., senior Phil Lundquist. “It’s a way to get people to realize that breast cancer is a problem, and celebrate their breasts and preserve them by having this cast of them,” said Berkas. “It’s a great concept: celebrate your body while helping other people fight for theirs.”

“It’s really hard to do community service on the campus, and especially to be involved in unique things, and this is a great way to do that,” said Berkas.
Many participants said that the event did not align with their expectations.

“I did it last year and I was expecting it to be really creepy,” said Co-Op resident and sophomore Souk Thongdymanyvong. “But it was weird how relaxing, fun and liberating it was.”

First-year Helen Brambrink went to the event with two of her friends.
“We were really awkward about it in the beginning,” said Brambrink. “But once we did it…we realized it was no big deal at all. I’m so glad we did it because it was a great freshman bonding experience.”
Over 60 students signed up for breast casting this year, said Berkas. Many of these students had different reasons for participating.

“Breast cancer runs in my family,” said first-year Ellen Vertatschitsch. “My grandma is actually dealing with it right now, so I feel like I’m supporting the cause.”

“My friends have done it in past years, and I thought it looked really cool,” said Viviana Gordon. “I’m going to give it to my boyfriend.”

“I think it’s liberating,” said Co-Op resident and sophomore Robin Hansen. “Everybody who comes in has to have an open mind to it.”

“At this point it has become kind of a tradition for the FAH and Co-Op to do together,” said Berkas. “Hopefully at this point it will become an official spring annual event.”

Midnight-thirty: Rap battle must go on

Genuine shows of community interest at Whitman are few and far between. Between ASWC, resident life, listserv e-mails, table toppers and insane postering, everything that happens on campus is so mediated, so advertised, so pre-planned and ultimately so wrapped in money, bureaucracy and expectations that in the end I often feel like I should want to go to an event more than I do.

This is why seeing last night’s freestyle battle get shut down is so fucking frustrating, and disappointing.

For once an event took very little planning, no ASWC money, hardly any advertising and had an amazing turnout. For once an event is not just for students, but for our friends in the Walla Walla community. For once Whitman students broke the bubble, only to see it powerfully reconstructed by security wanting students to play by their rules.

And so I say to my fellow students: Spontaneity is a virtue! Self-organization is a virtue! I am terrified that the community I live in might not be capable of either.

Did Whitman security have reasons to break up our gathering? Sure, even I can accept that. Yet every one of those reasons were fraught with holes and contradictions and met by stronger arguments against them.

I hope to bring a few of the claims of Whitman security to light, alongside responses and alternatives presented before them by students. I mean no disrespect to campus security, but I think a much better way should have been encouraged.

Initially the two campus security guards at the courts claimed that drugs (marijuana and alcohol) warranted dissolution of the gathering.
True, plenty of those in attendance were either high or intoxicated, yet by so late on April 20, this was almost inevitable. If they were high on the courts, they were high before the courts, and from our gathering last week we demonstrated that we are willing to pour out all alcohol and keep drug use off the premises.

This was never acknowledged.

In fact, reports about previous “complaints” were repeatedly cited against us although no one who had attended last week’s gathering could support these claims. Such claims simply don’t reflect what actually happened.

It was also noted that drug use and alcohol by disparate students all over campus, in fraternities and housing, and even on Ankeny is routinely ignored or accepted. But when a group of individuals congregate to freestyle they are guilty of breaking a rule unknown to me that Whitman students must have permission to congregate late at night on campus.

After non-students left (because the lenient drug-enforcement policy does not apply to them and they have much more to lose) Whitties moved from the courts to Ankeny and security’s logic changed.

Now it was our friends from town who were the problem, because they were purportedly on drugs, drunk or had criminal histories. First of all, for the vast majority this was patently false. Some, in fact, are staff members at Whitman, and most were here to freestyle in an event for which for once they were encouraged to participate by students.

It wasn’t as if Whitties were not drunk or stoned at the event, either. I was shocked to hear security attempt to mollify students by blaming those outside the so-called bubble. These are our friends who were treated like strangers and criminals.

Finally, the argument became simply that “You guys didn’t go through the proper groundwork,” despite how, in reality, students did communicate with security in advance, if imperfectly. I don’t know what went wrong. Most likely the message just didn’t go through. Yet rather than acknowledge and work to understand our claims as students, security maintained a posture of righteous superiority.

By the time we moved off the tennis courts, was there any problem left? The crowd was already smaller. Whitman’s precious private property was no longer in danger (although our gathering last week attests that it never was). Some community members who left came back to see if any headway had been made, and whether they would be allowed to freestyle unmolested.

Sadly, without a Frisbee or prior notice, Whitman students were not allowed to congregate on Ankeny. We were actively denied the right to assemble, and threatened that we could never gather for our purposes if we continued to exercise our speech.

Perhaps speech and assembly are simply privileges here at Whitman. In practice, they were denied.

So what possibilities do I think offer a better alternative? For starters, security could have helped do what should be their primary job: making sure we were safe. They could have agreed to provide security for, rather than against, the event; they could have encouraged people to sit; they could have simply given battlers center stage, and would have seen the crowd as they truly were: as an interested audience.

If noise was the problem, which—as we were completely unamplified—seems silly, we could have found an indoor location. Penrose is open 24/7. We could have battled in the reading room.

Yet security threatened that if we tried to have this event anywhere on campus, it would be shut down.

Students and readers, community lives through free speech and assembly; it thrives by spontaneity. Yet fostering community takes a willingness to solve problems as they arrive by exercising creativity, not authority. At this I believe Whitman’s security failed miserably. Instead my respect goes to our friends from off campus for putting up with so much bullshit, and with every other battler who showed up. On Friday night a crowd gathered hoping to transform into something even more rare then a flawless flow: a genuine community.

– Avi Conant

Sexist, unrealistic body images in media advertising

We all know that most women and men that we see portrayed in advertisements are not realistic. We may know that these people represent an almost impossible body type, often due to surgery and eating disorders. We may even know that most model photos in advertisements are altered with computers, and that some bodies in photos are even a combination of different models’ body parts assembled with computer imaging. What we may not know about are the negative psychological effects of being exposed to such images on a daily basis.

Three thousand. This is how many separate advertisements the average American encounters in a single day. We encounter advertisements on soda cans, clothing, television, radio, food dispensers, the Internet, newspapers, cell phones, blimps, even banana stickers. According to “Women and Gender: A Feminist Psychology” by Mary Crawford and Rhoda Unger, advertisements occupy 60 percent of all newspaper space and 52 percent of magazine pages.

Advertisement images are especially notorious for portraying women in unrealistic and sexist ways. Seventy-three percent of all magazine images display women as decorative or sexualized. Women are repeatedly shown as being “checked out by men,” inspecting or touching themselves, flirting, or wearing something revealing. Many ads feature just a part of a woman’s body or show a woman’s body morphing into a product. As far as unrealistic images, only 3 to 5 percent of all American women can achieve the physical appearance of a “real” fashion model, according to Crawford and Unger.

So what happens when women and men are exposed to such unrealistic and sexist images on a daily basis? Numerous studies have shown that repeated exposure to such images may contribute to a broad range of social and psychological problems, including sexist attitudes and beliefs, sexual harassment, violence against women, eating disorders and stereotyped perceptions of and behavior towards men and women.

One such study conducted in 1996 by the Personality And Social Psychology Bulletin revealed that women exposed to sexist ads judged their current body size as larger and revealed a larger discrepancy between their actual and ideal body sizes (preferring a thinner body) than women exposed to the nonsexist or no ad condition. In the same study, men exposed to the sexist ads judged their current body size as thinner, revealed a larger discrepancy between their actual and ideal body size (preferring a larger body), and revealed a larger discrepancy between their own ideal body size and their perceptions of other’s male body size preferences (believing that others preferred a larger ideal).

Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to be immune to these negative effects without completely removing the presence of these advertisements. Even people such as feminists, who are more likely than those with traditional attitudes to recognize and reject sexist material, are not immune to advertising’s subtle effects. Research done in “Women and Gender: A Feminist Psychology” shows that self esteem lowers in the presence of these images, even when the participants know about its adverse effects.

Crawford and Unger provide us with these facts:

Twenty-nine: the average weekly number of hours Americans spend watching television. Fifty-nine percent: the amount of kids between 4 and 6 who have a television in their room. Eighty-one percent: the amount of 10-year-olds who are afraid of being fat. Forty-two percent: the amount of first to third grade girls who want to be thinner. Nine percent: the amount of 9-year-olds who have vomited to lose weight. Ten percent: the amount of women with anorexia nervosa who die due to anorexia-related causes.

Unrealistic advertisements are not benign. Know this: YOU are beautiful, no matter what the media images try to tell you.

Students consider the merits of hip-hop

The presence of hip-hop culture has recently been highlighted by campus events including the Coffeehouse performance by Kat, a spoken word poet, as well as the student organized dance production, “Cinderella”. These reminders are representative of the hip-hop culture that is interwoven into the lives of many Whitman students.

“Hip-hop shows are really well attended,” said senior Stefan Ducich, the ASWC public events chair. As the person in charge of booking musical entertainers that ASWC sponsors, Ducich has made several efforts to bring more live hip-hop music to campus.

“There were three attempts to get hip-hop shows onto campus but they did not work out due to logistical and financial reasons,” said Ducich.

Ducich said that there is a strong draw towards hip-hop music on campus, but that this strong interest is often underrepresented by students on campus.
Sophomore Kate Greenberg, a student who recently preformed in the “Cinderella” dance production, and has lead Winterim hip-hop dance workshop in her first year said, “I would love to have more [hip-hop] on campus.”

“There are three kinds of people on campus: people who don’t know anything about hip-hop, people like [hip-hop] but don’t know much about it, and people who like [hip-hop] but tend to keep it to themselves,” said Sophomore Stephanie Gil.

According to Gil, the first kind of people often don’t like hip-hop, or fear it because it is so foreign to them. The second kind is confused about hip-hop because they know so little about hip-hop other than commercial mainstream music. The third kind is typically more reserved since they don’t want to impose their music onto other people.

Gil has shared her passion for hip-hop as the DJ of Black Student Union hip-hop dances, recently performing in the dance production “Cinderella” and by leading Winterim hip-hop dance workshops for two years in a row.

Most people have their individual definition of hip-hop.

“Hip-hop to me is about rhythm, what makes me move the most, what really gets me going,” said Greenberg.

According to Gil, “Hip-hop is more like poetry, the expression of oneself, one’s emotions . . . hardships.”

“[Hip-hop] gives me a kind of inspiration, it can help you motivate yourself . . . to know people went through hard times that you went through,” said Gil.
Greenberg puts a bigger emphasis on the passion and movement inspired by hip-hop music.

“Hip-hop gives you whole hearted expression. . . the rhythm of music and the rhythm of my body, come together in a synergetic way . . . it’s about how it makes you feel” she said.

“People feel restrained to move to hip-hop,” Greenberg said of a number of Whitman students. “I think the moves are complicated . . . people have never learned to move in the way we move for hip-hop.”

At Whitman, there are often various connotations associated to hip-hop. “To some, hip-hop means booty shaking . . . [hip-hop] is associated to MTV” said Greenberg.

“Hip-hop is really one-sided . . . it’s all focused on the mainstream. . . [and] mainstream hip-hop isn’t hip-hop anymore,” said Gil. “When hip-hop first came out it dealt with more political issues . . . old school hip-hop had something to say.”

The mainstream images used to sell hip-hop like “booty shaking, grinding on people, drugs, money, [and] degrading girls [give people] negative views of hip-hop” said Gil. “The artistic value of hip-hop has gotten lost in money.”
Gil offered hip-hop artist MIMS single “This Is Why I’m Hot” which includes the lyric: “I can sell a mill saying nothing on the track,” and Nas’ 2006 release, “Hip-hop is Dead” as examples that highlight this dichotomy between contemporary and old school hip-hop.

“It’d be nice to talk about [hip-hop] . . . get some of those conceptions out of the way,” said Gil.

Students support cancer victims through breast casting

To see artistic creations unlike anything else in the world, you need only walk over to Whitman’s Sheehan Gallery. With around six shows a year—each lasting about two months—Sheehan Gallery displays art from across the world. Sheehan Gallery brings art ranging from cultural artifacts to professional modern art to student produced shows.

With different mediums of expression employed, from oils to sculpture to projection, the Sheehan Gallery is able to accommodate the gamut of artistic expression.

A committee of faculty from different departments oversees Sheehan Gallery. The committee, headed by retiring Ian Boyden, determines what shows come to Sheehan and also oversees the breezeway next to the gallery.

“The committee represents different aspects of college,” said Lecturer of Art Charly Bloomquist. “Various people from different departments sit on the committee; the gallery serves the whole community.”

Shows open with an opening reception in which the artist presents his or her work. Shows often coincide with lectures to supplement the exhibit.

Artists are commissioned to come to Whitman and create a show for the Sheehan Gallery. Among the five shows in Sheehan gallery this year, the school brought controversial artist Buster Simpson who put on the show “Implement Instrument.”

“The college has been fairly successful in bringing interesting and well-known artists into the gallery,” said senior studio art major Rebecca Jensen.
Currently, the senior studio art thesis exhibition is on display at the Sheehan Gallery. With 12 studio art major seniors displaying their final projects in the Sheehan Gallery, the exhibit is a display of student talent and ambition.

“It was very exciting to enter that real gallery space,” said Jensen. Jensen describes her installation, made of sticks, twine, paint and nails, as a “kinesthetic painting—a painting existing in space. The viewer has to move around it to explore it; the artist’s hand is very visible in the project.”

The senior thesis exhibit is the most popular exhibit of the year. “It always has the biggest crowd because everyone wants to see their friend’s work,” said Jensen.

“I’d been playing with things in my studio for so long that to move to the real gallery—the real deal—was very exciting.”

The exhibit represents the culmination of four years of formal study using varying art mediums. “I’m really impressed by some of the jumps a lot of the artists have made this year,” said Jensen. “Courtney Morgan in particular with her Pistolier. It was a really awesome jump from the canvas.”

The exhibit proved to be a learning experience for the seniors. “I have a greater appreciation for the work put into these projects now that I’ve actually had to do one,” said Jensen.

Sheehan Gallery also has an adjacent room that serves as a permanent Japanese tea serving room in which formal tea ceremonies are held.
The senior thesis exhibit will be showing until the end of the school year. Sheehan Gallery is open Tuesday through Friday, noon to 5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m.

America Reads year-end reception honors interns

Whitman College interns who have been working hard all year to help local K-12 students in reading and math were honored on April 24 from 3:30-4:30 p.m. in the Reid Campus Center Ballroom.

“The year end reception is for 67 active interns who are working this semester, the site coordinators who are the links at each one of the 13 sites that we tutor in and then the teachers that work with the actual interns,” said Debbie Conklin, coordinator of the America Reads/America Counts program. “The highlight of the reception is honoring the 16 seniors
who are graduating.”

Conklin has been with the program for nine of its 10 years of existence.

Conklin said, “Our program has changed the educational landscape of Walla Walla, without a doubt. It’s a whole different education because of all the Whitman students. The dedication that they have is just tremendous.”

According to the Whitman Career Center Web site, “The America Reads program is aimed at increasing English literacy among school age children” and “The America Counts program is aimed at increasing mathematical skills among high school, middle and upper elementary school children.”

“[The year-end reception] is the one time where students, teachers, site coordinators, interns and I are all in one room together,” said Conklin. “It’s festive and it’s fun, and we get to hear perspectives from the many components of the program. Seniors are invited to share with the group how long they’ve been with the program, where they’ve been, what they’ve done, and any kind of personal insights.”

Senior Josh Smith has been with the America Reads program for four years.

Smith said of the reception, “It’s a chance for all the students to get together and to communicate. We can give feedback and say what’s worked and what hasn’t worked. We also have a chance to talk about students, not by name, but about the types of students that we deal with. It’s great to compare our experiences and share and expand our knowledge so that we are more able to deal with situations, or feel like we have other people we can talk to.”
Senior Zach Conroy has also been with the program for four years.

“For me, it’s a really great, fun job,” said Conroy. “It’s rewarding and I love working with kids. I think that we really do make a difference with these kids that are struggling. The one-on-one attention is really good for them, and I think it’s a great program.”

Conroy and Smith both described the skills that they gained through their work, as well as the rewarding sense of giving back.

“Every year I think [the closing reception] is going to be burdensome,” said Smith. “I get the e-mails and realize there’s something else I have to go to. Then I’ll go, and it will be a totally rewarding experience.”

Senior Eric Cates has also worked with the America Reads program since his first year at Whitman and has similar feelings.

Cates wrote via e-mail, “It was a relief and a joy to experience life outside of Whitman campus and to establish connections to the Walla Walla community.”

Conklin stressed the importance of the interns’ work and of honoring them for what they have done. “The program is just a win-win situation for students of all ages and it helps everyone involved,” she said.

Survey reveals high sexual misconduct at Whitman

Statistics cite correlation between greek system and incidences of misconduct.

Whitman College’s most recent sexual misconduct survey revealed that Whitman females reported the same percentage of forced vaginal sex incidences as women nation-wide. During the last year approximately 1.7 percent of Whitman females experienced an incident of forced vaginal sex, the same percentage that was reported in a nationwide survey conducted in 2000 by Fisher et al. The survey at Whitman used data from 582 students, about 42.3 percent of the campus and fairly accurately represented campus demographics.

Statistics in the survey show an apparent correlation between members of the greek system and incidences of sexual misconduct on campus. According to the survey, in 62.2 percent of sexual misconduct incidences the aggressors were reported to be fraternity members. In addition, 44.6 percent of female respondents who experienced at least one incident of sexual misconduct were sorority members. These statistics are higher than the campus demographics in which sorority women represent 29 percent of the female population and fraternity men represent 34 percent of the population.

The disproportion between campus demographics and the percentage of greeks involved in sexual misconduct incidences increases in accordance with the severity of the incident.  As defined by Whitman College, sexual misconduct includes a variety of physical contact ranging from unwanted touching to forced penetration. In incidences of attempted and completed forced penetration on campus 78.6 percent of the aggressors were greek males.
The high percentage of greek members involved in sexual misconduct incidences on campus appears to be linked to alcohol consumption. According to the 2006 Whitman Lifestyle Choices Survey by Chistopherson, greek members tend to drink significantly more alcohol on average while partying than unaffiliated students. The sexual misconduct survey states that the three highest factors that put people at risk for incidences of sexual misconduct are alcohol, traditional gender ideology and greek membership. Out of these three factors, alcohol, by far, is the highest determinant.
According to Sara Pierce-Magdalik, a senior sociology major who helped conduct the survey as part of her senior thesis, alcohol overrides all of the other factors: “You can have the most traditional gender ideology and be a member of the greek system but still not be at high-risk for severe forms of sexual misconduct if you drink moderately or not at all.”
With alcohol being such a large component of sexual misconduct incidences, the issue is not limited to the greek system, but rather is a campus-wide problem. Any social situation during which alcohol is being consumed excessively is at-risk for incidences of sexual misconduct.
“Students should try to monitor and limit their own alcohol consumption and that of their peers,” said Pierce-Magdalik. “The solutions to the problem need, first and foremost, to be internally motivated.”
In order to address the issue of sexual misconduct, the various greek organizations are actively discussing potential solutions to the problem of excessive alcohol consumption on and off campus. As a highly visible student run group, the greek system has, perhaps more than any other group on campus, the ability to bring awareness to the issue.
“The greek system is in a position of great power to change the current situation on campus,” said Christie Seyfert, sophomore president of Kappa Kappa Gamma.
As a result of the latest sexual misconduct survey the greek system at Whitman is extremely concerned about their image on campus. Worried that the benefits of the greek system may become overshadowed by the survey’s statistics, they are working harder than ever to emphasize that the greek system is a positive force in the overall community.
Whitman’s greek system is extensively involved in community service: “We participated in an all-greek project in which we planted about 2,000 trees in the community. In addition to this, the Kappas raised over $8,000 dollars from their annual Mr. Whitman fundraiser for a cerebral palsy school in Africa,” said Seyfert.
On Monday, April 23, the six greek leaders at Whitman met with Barbara Maxwell, an associate dean of students, to continue their discussion on potential ways in which to reduce and prevent sexual misconduct. The greek system wishes to bring the issue to the forefront of the entire campus. Their aims will hopefully serve to raise awareness about the disturbing connection between alcohol consumption and sexual misconduct.
For further information, Sara Pierce-Magdalik can be reached at piercesl@whitman.edu.

Whitman responds to VT tragedy

Whitman students, faculty and staff united somberly on the Cordiner side lawn on Wednesday, April 18 at 7 p.m. for a vigil in memory of the 33 victims of the school shooting at Virginia Tech. After a moment of silence, Whitman attendees and members of the greater Walla Walla community were invited to share reactions, thoughts and feelings. Several students went to the podium to express confusion and hurt, mixed with messages of love, harmony and understanding.

“I don’t know how to understand it; I wish I had some way to,” said Ajay Abraham, senior religion major and ASWC finance chair, in his address to the crowd. “The only thing I can come up with, and forgive me for sounding hokey, but is to turn to love.”

“I wanted it to be something spiritual,” said sophomore Kevin Booth about his contribution up at the podium. “Connecting to what other people were saying, but applicable to everything around you, all the time … and about how very transient we are as beings [in] this world.” He talked about an eye-opening trip to Pike’s Peak he had made earlier that day.

Senior religion major Levi Nelson also spoke, asking students to wear the Hokie colors—orange and maroon—on Friday as a show of support. “One of my very close friends from high school attends Virginia Tech, and I heard from her on facebook.com that she was fine; they actually set [a facebook group] up almost immediately afterwards that was like, I’m okay at Virginia Tech .… It’s very strange because I’m from Littleton, Colo., and I went to Columbine’s rival high school, as did this close friend of mine, so school shootings just hit close to home.”

Many students were in tears, or on the verge of them, during the Virginia tech vigil.
“I think a lot of those reactions are something that people, knowing this campus and knowing how we like to be high achievers, would have held in otherwise,” said Nelson, “but [the vigil] gave it a safe place for it to happen.”

“It was kind of a safe haven, hopefully, where we were just standing together and listening to each other,” said Booth.

“So often when you’re reading the news, you disconnect it from the reality you live in,” said senior politics major Natalie Knott, who organized the vigil. “So to be able to gather with a group of students, and to look … it could have been any one of us, in any situation we’re familiar with every day. It’s sort of a hard thing to come to terms with.”

Dean of Students Chuck Cleveland, Director of Student Activities George Theo, and ASWC also helped to coordinate the vigil and to alert the community about it. An e-mail was sent out on the student listserv and ASWC nominations chair Laura Hanson got in touch with members of a peace group in town. Many Walla Walla residents who were on campus to see NPR Host Diane Rehm stood at the vigil for a while as well.

There was concern early on that the vigil would be used to convey a political message as well, when the issue of gun control was mentioned by Knott in the e-mail that circulated on campus. “When I wrote the original e-mail, I knew it was going to be an effort with this campus to get them to care about anything if it didn’t directly affect them,” said Knott. “So the statistics on gun violence and people in our generation and our age group are ridiculous and astronomical and that affects all of us … even those tucked away in safe classrooms in little towns. It was a linkage … I do definitely think we need gun control, but the vigil was not supposed to be about that message.”

“I was really nervous, because that was something the student listserv was passing around, that it would become part of the vigil, and I’m really glad it didn’t,” said Nelson.

“I think gun control separately is an important issue, but the first and foremost thing is it’s a tragedy,” Nelson said.

For some, the vigil raised questions about Whitman participation and apathy. “I very rarely have seen impromptu things that were that well attended,” said Nelson. “One of the only other ones I can remember would be when all of us stood outside to encourage the professors to cancel classes for the race symposium.”

“It made me think, why don’t we have these vigils for all the people who died in Iraq?” said Meg McPhaden, a senior politics major who attended the vigil. She added that if peace demonstrations physically took place on campus, there would be a far greater number of student participants.

Both Abraham and Knott were glad to see as many people show up as they did. “I think this is something we can all come together about,” said Abraham. “Our communal confusion and sadness … that’s shared.”

‘Fracture’

Anybody here seen a crime drama? I don’t know, maybe like “A Few Good Men” or any episode of “CSI”? How about Anthony Hopkins as a cold and calculating serial killer? “Silence of the Lambs,” anyone? Throw in a young hotshot DA (we haven’t seen that character before of course), a “foolproof” case that isn’t quite so foolproof, and a romantic subplot, and you have an easy recipe for an incredibly generic film. You don’t have to see “Fracture,” because you already have.

Ted Crawford (Hopkins) is a wealthy aeronautics engineer who decides that a bullet to the head is the best way to stop his wife’s cheating ways. After he is found by the hostage negotiator still holding the gun and openly confesses, it appears to be an open-and-shut case. However, when cocksure prosecutor Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) is assigned to the case, his hubris sets him up for a hard fall as he soon discovers that the quick and easy case is much more complicated. Trying to salvage his reputation, Beachum falls into a cat-and-mouse game with the ruthless and composed Crawford.

Doesn’t this sound pretty familiar? TV shows like “CSI,” “House” or “Law and Order” do this all the time. The case looks obvious (and the main character states that), complications arise, and then at the last moment the hero figures out a solution.

However, this is no hour-long-with-commercial-breaks television show, but a two-hour long movie. This leads to unfortunate padding with subplots such as Beachum’s problems with his upcoming transition to a lucrative corporate firm (which would of course be jeopardized if he lost the case), and a ho-hum romantic subplot with his new boss Nikki Gardner (Rosamund Pike). It would have been nice if these subplots were fleshed out more, but they’re only used for Beachum’s character development and are summarily dropped once their usefulness is up. This is especially problematic because despite these subplots, Beachum’s changes make little sense when his character arc for the whole film is examined.

Of course Hopkins is good, and Gosling has good acting chops and relishes the cocky Beachum, but good acting is only a pillar of a film, not the whole shebang. Actually, in the movie’s defense, it probably would have been a great “very special episode” of one of the aforementioned shows. The scenes that pair Hopkins and Gosling are great, as Crawford obviously enjoys mocking the brash and irked Beachum, but these scenes are unfortunately few and far between. The extra scenes only serve to bog down the story, and especially when the audience figures out the twist (and a fair amount will have the solution halfway through the movie), it just seems to drag on and on as you wait for the young lawyer to catch up.

If you are ecstatic at seeing Hannibal Lecter sans cannibalism, or are obsessive about the works of Ryan Gosling, you could do worse than “Fracture.” However, if an hour long crime TV show is already pushing the limit for you, “Fracture” isn’t going to offer much new in its two-hour timeframe.

Grade: B-

Students demand creative writing major

The Whitman English department has considered establishing a creative writing major, but has determined that the current creative writing opportunities are set-up to best meet students’ needs.

English professor Scott Elliot expressed the stance of the department in an e-mail.

Elliot said that the English department has hesitated to institute a creative writing major because they feel that the study of literature is integral to the development of writing skills. “Good poems, stories, and novels aren’t written in a vacuum. In order to become a viable voice in a literary tradition, a writer needs to know the best voices in that tradition,” Elliot said.

Elliot said the department is concerned with “what it means to officially declare something a major,” asking, “are courses taken outside a major program of study really less sweet, of less value than those taken to fulfill requirements for a major?”

Several other concerns arose during the English department’s discussion.

“One of the great things about creative writing courses as they now stand is that they are populated by students from a wide range of disciplines at Whitman. This makes for a wonderful diversity of voices and approaches in these classes. If we were to implement a Creative Writing major, and this major were to become popular, one of the negative results might be that only those students who were Creative Writing majors would be able to register for and take creative writing classes,” Elliot said.

Elliot believes that the current structure of classes allows students to improve their writing while also gaining expertise in other academic disciplines. “I know many students who have taken advantage of nearly all the writing courses available at Whitman during their time here and benefited enormously from these classes while also pursuing and completing established majors. I’d argue that these students are better off for having taken all the writing classes they did and also better, more well-rounded people for having completed the requirements of an established major,” Elliot said.

Elliot is emphatic about the English department’s desire to meet students’ needs. “We really do want to give our students the best possible opportunities in creative writing,” he said. He believes Whitman is currently succeeding in that aim.

“As things stand, it seems to me that those students who really want to seek out great opportunities in creative writing can find them at Whitman, even if these opportunities don’t register as official check marks on the way to completing a major,” Elliot said.

“Every year since I’ve arrived at Whitman, we’ve placed writers in good graduate programs,” added Elliot.

Drew Arnold, a senior English major who has taken intermediate and advanced creative writing classes at Whitman, agrees with Elliot that students who want to improve their writing can do so at Whitman.

. “Writing is personal work that people who are passionate will do regardless. They will seek out the classes to guide their creative work. I’m not saying that it is secondary, I am saying that people benefit from studying a wider range of things. The more you know about the world the better your writing is going to be, you don’t get that knowledge from just studying writing,” said Arnold.

Arnold does support the idea of a creative thesis option for English majors, however, and views a creative writing minor as another possible form of official acknowledgment for writing students.

“I’m a proponent of the creative thesis,” said Arnold. “A minor is a better option than a major because people have a focus besides writing,” he added.

Arnold also believes the English major serves him better in the job market than a creative writing major would: “I have the skill set, and the transcript shows I’m writing.”

Arnold values the complimentary blend of literature and writing classes: “My knowledge of English Literature has equipped me to write creatively and the workshop classes have helped me hone those skills.”

“You learn how to write by studying literature,” said Arnold.

Pro: Humans are naturally flirtatious

In 2006, the very hot Scarlett Johansson told reporters, “I don’t think human beings are monogamous creatures by nature.”

That’s right: Scarlett Johansson believes in casual sex.

According to Wikipedia.org, “Casual sex refers to sexual activity outside the context of a romantic relationship, consisting of a range of informal sexual encounters.”

So basically it means you can fuck Nathonius from your philosophy class on Friday and Matt from the Mellow Bean on Saturday and everyone will be okay with it.

When I was 11, my mom told me, “There are only two things that make life really worth living: Food and sex. And food makes you fat.”

My mother, ever the wise sage, was right: Sex is like food that doesn’t make you fat.

Sex can make you pregnant and it can give you STDs. So keep some rubbers in your pocket and make sure you take your birth control pill on time, too. We’ve all been lectured on the necessities of safe sex and these necessities hold even if you are in a committed, monogamous relationship.

But there is plenty of time for committed, monogamous relationships.

First, look at the facts: In January, 2007 the New York Times reported that 51 percent of all women over the age of 25 were living without a spouse, which is up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000. People are living longer and experimenting more. Women don’t need men the way they used to.
There just isn’t the same economical argument for monogamy that there was 100 years ago, when a woman needed to find a man who could financially support her and a man needed to find a woman who would help him build a family. Now there are alternatives for women and men, and marriage is no longer essential.

The emotional argument for monogamy—that human beings are naturally jealous creatures who can’t deal with the repercussions of open relationships—is flimsy at best. Every person is different and college is a time to learn about yourself and want you want in life. Settling down early on deprives us of our need to experiment and could drive us to ask ourselves later on, “What if?”

Editorialist Julia Allison wrote in a 2005 for CoEd Magazine, “Humans are naturally flirtatious, sexual beings. College students, unlike humans, have little or no capacity to restrain this side of them.”

Allison went on to claim that the attempts of many college students to form monogamous relationships are not necessarily healthy. College, she explained, is the time to experiment and have fun.

And Allison is right: There is plenty of time to settle down. For only four years of your life will you exist in this utopia of like-minded, good-looking, unmarried young adults. Take advantage of it.

Tennis season ends

On Fri. April 20 and Sat. April 21 the Whitman men’s and women’s tennis teams played in the NWC Championships.

The men’s team beat Willamette 9-0 in a semi-final round, but lost to Pacific Lutheran 6-3 in the final Championship match.
The men’s season record is 23-7, and their NWC record is 14-5.

Senior Phalkun Mam was recently named NWC Men’s Tennis Player of the Year. Seniors Steven Ly, Robbie Munday, and Mam made the eight-man All-NWC First Team. First-year Matt Soloman made the six-man All-NWC Second Team.

The women’s team beat Willamette 5-4 in a first-round match, lost to Puget Sound 7-2 in a semi-final round and beat Pacific Lutheran 5-4 in the third-place match.

The women’s season record is 18-7, and their NWC record is 14-5.

Senior Maura Flaherty was awarded NWC Sportswomen of the Year. First-year Hadley DeBree and Flaherty made the eight-woman All-NWC First Team.

Whitman supporting ‘culture of fear’

I was frustrated by George Bridges’ recent e-mail about the Homeland Security campus alert. The incident at Virginia Tech was a terrible tragedy and I hold compassion in my heart for all those who still suffer. I am very skeptical, however, of Homeland Security’s attempt to twist this into another tool of fear to manipulate the American public. Although the “quiet alert” did not mention terrorism, our automatic emotional response to Homeland Security threats is to think of terrorism and 9/11. Would it be too much of a stretch to think that this fear tactic is directed at college campuses, since colleges are seen as a “hotbed” of political dissent?

If Whitman buys into the terror alert system, I would consider some of the actual dangers that we face on a daily basis. Before we have “quiet alert” for shooters/terrorists, perhaps we should have “loud alert” for automobiles, since 35,000 Americans die every year in automobile accidents. Is Whitman going to continue to support the culture of fear that the federal government propagates?

– James Most

Protecting Freedom

On April 16 there was a horrible tragedy at Virginia Tech. The extent of the carnage catapulted the gun-control question to the forefront of our national consciousness. To purchase these weapons, V.T. student Seung-Hui Cho underwent a background check for criminal history and mental illness, presented three forms of ID, was over 21 and went through a 30-day waiting period. Clearly, his plan was well prepared and deliberate.

The only gun control question in this case is why a judge’s assessment of Cho in 2005 as a danger to himself due to mental instability didn’t prevent him from purchasing a gun. If the judge had determined he was a danger to others in his report, the background check Cho went through would have denied him the right to buy a firearm.

This small legal differentiation will soon be closed through legislation; no one seriously thinks someone with that kind of mental history should be allowed to purchase a gun. The question of this case isn’t gun control, it is guns themselves. Why do we have a right to bear arms? Is this right relevant, or harmful, in our modern society? The right to bear arms must be protected now more than ever.

In 1964 Malcolm X delivered a speech entitled “The Ballot or the Bullet,” in which he gave the United States a simple choice: give blacks their civil rights guaranteed in the Constitution or they will take them by force. In our democratic society, there are two methods by which the people hold the reigns of power: the ballot and the bullet.

Voting is just a mechanism to ensure that we maintain a representative government. It can fail. Let us remember that the “government” is merely the execution of public duties by individuals who have their own self-interests. The self-interest of individuals hasn’t changed since the founding of this nation, but the power of the government has grown inconceivably.

Thomas Jefferson said, “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” The threat to us today is from the collusion of technology, government, business, the military, power and greed.

We all agree that to maintain liberty we must have an informed and educated citizenry to exercise the vote as a real check on the activities of government. Liberals especially emphasize this necessity, and I agree whole heartedly with them. As Abolitionist Wendell Phillips said, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

What liberals too often fail to recognize is that our liberty rests not solely on our ability to prevent abuses of power through the vote, but also upon vigilance in our ability to maintain those rights by force.

The destructive power of modern weaponry is a fact. Assault weapons and handguns are meant to kill people, period. Yet it is the criminals who will exercise the least restraint in utilizing these facts of modernity. A criminal is one who violates the laws or rights of the citizens of this Republic. Criminals can wear uniforms or not, they can hold office or not. Protecting your rights from the government is laughable if you are restricted to hunting rifles and bird-shot.

The great lesson of the last 50 years is not the might of nuclear weapons and modern militaries, it is their weakness. The Israeli wars in Lebanon, the American conflicts in Vietnam and Iraq, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan are all testaments to the power of the locally supported and lightly armed civilian-soldier.

Should defense of your liberties from government be too abstract an argument, then let us consider the disturbingly similar Virginia shooting at the Appalachian School of Law by a mentally ill ex-student in 2002. Three people, including the dean of the school, were killed and three others wounded. The incident could have been much worse, but two other students had personal firearms and pulled them on the shooter, forcing him to drop his weapon. Of course, we’ll never know how many people that were saved because of the right to bear arms that day, only how many died.

Even if you read the news, you may not have known that several school shootings have been stopped because of someone else using their personal firearm. Why not? Because the media often reports that someone “tackled” or “confronted” the shooter, not that they pulled a gun. I experienced this blatant bias firsthand in my research.

Are there certain laws that are necessary to prevent the wrong people from purchasing firearms? Of course. We must be extremely wary as citizens of a democratic nation, however, of anything beyond common sense restrictions. We have to realize that our late 20th century American experience of generally beneficial and representative government is the exception, not the rule, and that our circumstances can change in the blink of an eye.

We must recognize that our Constitution enshrined certain means through which the people could control their government and the most important measures they conceived of were the ballot and the bullet. We must recognize that an armed public is not a threat to our safety but a necessary protector of our individual liberty. Most of all, we must not let the horrors of an ill mind be used to erode the rights which have guaranteed us freedom.

Sheehan diversifies Whitman art displays

To see artistic creations unlike anything else in the world, you need only walk over to Whitman’s Sheehan Gallery. With around six shows a year—each lasting about two months—Sheehan Gallery displays art from across the world. Sheehan Gallery brings art ranging from cultural artifacts to professional modern art to student produced shows.

With different mediums of expression employed, from oils to sculpture to projection, the Sheehan Gallery is able to accommodate the gamut of artistic expression.

A committee of faculty from different departments oversees Sheehan Gallery. The committee, headed by retiring Ian Boyden, determines what shows come to Sheehan and also oversees the breezeway next to the gallery.

“The committee represents different aspects of college,” said Lecturer of Art Charly Bloomquist. “Various people from different departments sit on the committee; the gallery serves the whole community.”

Shows open with an opening reception in which the artist presents his or her work. Shows often coincide with lectures to supplement the exhibit.
Artists are commissioned to come to Whitman and create a show for the Sheehan Gallery. Among the five shows in Sheehan gallery this year, the school brought controversial artist Buster Simpson who put on the show “Implement Instrument.”

“The college has been fairly successful in bringing interesting and well-known artists into the gallery,” said senior studio art major Rebecca Jensen.
Currently, the senior studio art thesis exhibition is on display at the Sheehan Gallery. With 12 studio art major seniors displaying their final projects in the Sheehan Gallery, the exhibit is a display of student talent and ambition.

“It was very exciting to enter that real gallery space,” said Jensen. Jensen describes her installation, made of sticks, twine, paint and nails, as a “kinesthetic painting—a painting existing in space. The viewer has to move around it to explore it; the artist’s hand is very visible in the project.”

The senior thesis exhibit is the most popular exhibit of the year. “It always has the biggest crowd because everyone wants to see their friend’s work,” said Jensen.

“I’d been playing with things in my studio for so long that to move to the real gallery—the real deal—was very exciting.”

The exhibit represents the culmination of four years of formal study using varying art mediums. “I’m really impressed by some of the jumps a lot of the artists have made this year,” said Jensen. “Courtney Morgan in particular with her Pistolier. It was a really awesome jump from the canvas.”

The exhibit proved to be a learning experience for the seniors. “I have a greater appreciation for the work put into these projects now that I’ve actually had to do one,” said Jensen.

Sheehan Gallery also has an adjacent room that serves as a permanent Japanese tea serving room in which formal tea ceremonies are held.
The senior thesis exhibit will be showing until the end of the school year. Sheehan Gallery is open Tuesday through Friday, noon to 5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m.

Chasing the muse of inspiration

I was in tears over a paper last week. Stupid, isn’t it? For half a week, I mulled over a five-page Microsoft Word document. It was a Don Snow nature essay, a reflection on rock collecting. I couldn’t escape that paper, because every ounce of my mental energy went toward telling the story. I was… my thoughts were… my story was… everything. I tried to weave it all into an essay.

“You have to cork the Muse. She’s very fickle.” Poet Tess Gallagher finished her reading in Kimball Theatre last Thursday with a question and answer session. What everyone wanted to know, of course, was “How do you get your ideas?” Everyone goes to poetry readings to steal ideas: the audience’s pens hovered over notebooks. Gallagher says writers have muses and angels—the Muse gives us images to inspire the craft; the Angel, a structure to frame them.

You can tell that this woman thinks in images: she describes the difference between two of her published works: The first “is like someone playing cello under the moon. The second is “like an orchestra.”

She is wise about her craft. I have heard Irv Hashimoto say it’s worthless talking to writers about writing. “They never tell you what they’re really doing. They don’t know.” Better just to observe their work. I disagree. When writers can articulate what exactly they do, it’s better material to steal than style tips. Gallagher’s stories could never be mine, but her Muse and Angel metaphor put into words my writing agony. My fickle Muse brought me ideas—plenty—but my Angel eluded me. For centuries people have blamed the muse. They think they need to seek inspiration. Here’s Don Snow’s advice about essay topics: “Go out and mow the lawn. Think about it.” Hell, Thoreau spent months staring at a pond. Maybe these people are onto something. Maybe our biggest problem is the amount of stuff that comes filtering through our brains. Maybe we’d all be better writers if we processed the world in single portions.

We can’t. Modern-day writing requires weaving—linking knowledge from multiple sources to bring a point into focus. Linking science with art; narratives with cultural phenomena; psychology with street scenes; Shakespeare with slam poetry. We can’t write straight-up Wordsworth any more, because people won’t stomach it. People crave new angles and metaphors—we’re cross-disciplinary multi-taskers. The Muse is showing up all over the place, in every sort of discipline.

Stop chasing the Muse, because what you’re really looking for is the Angel. Take good notes, and learn to weed them.

Contact Emma Wood at
emma.wood@whitmanpioneer.com

Free Expression Wall removal requsted by group of students

Just before Visitor’s Weekend—April 13 and 14—the Free Expression Wall in front of Olin Hall was taken down.

E-mails to the student listserv speculated that the removal was an attempt by the Whitman administration to clean up a controversial image to make Whitman appear more aesthetically pleasant to prospective students and their parents.

Senior Laura Hanson was told by another student of the wall’s removal and sent an e-mail to the listserv that weekend. Hanson has differing opinions about the wall, but maintains that its presence was sanctioned by students and the administration.

Last fall, senior Thomas Miller came up with the idea for a Free Expression Wall in the time before the Race Symposium. Students signed a petition made by Miller for the approval and the construction of the wall. Dean of Students Chuck Cleveland said the wall was to be a temporary installation before and after the Race Symposium.

Cleveland debunked listserv speculation that the Wall’s removal was mandated by the administration. In fact, a group of concerned students requested it be taken down, he said.

“I didn’t know anything about [the removal]. I knew the boards were originally designed to be temporary for the Race Symposium, when they were supposed to be taken down, but for whatever reason they were up. Then, the next thing [I knew], they were gone,” said Cleveland.

Director of Student Activities George Theo asked Cleveland about the disappearance of the Wall, informing him of rumors that students were involved.

Cleveland put in a call to the Physical Plant, which confirmed rumors Theo had heard.
A group of students reportedly felt “unsafe” because of something written on the Expression Wall, so they sought help from Whitman Security. Security referred the students to the Physical Plant, where the students requested the Wall be taken down.
“Part of me wants to say, ‘Well, this is a student-sanctioned space, sanctioned by the administration.’ The wall was expensive and no one consulted the students who had signed a petition that they wanted a Free Expression Wall before they took it down. I think there needs to be some sort of reciprocity,” said Hanson. “Part of me doesn’t want a Free Expression Wall because it means that free expression only happens on this one space.”

Currently, there is no further information about the content on the Wall that prompted its removal, nor are there further plans.

The razor’s edge

Death is not hard to come by these days. Ever since the human chronicle began, blood has stained its pages; this past week’s page was no different. Last Monday, 32 people were killed in the halls of Virginia Tech, marking the bloodiest act of school violence in history. Just two days later, up to 200 people were killed in a string of car bombs in Baghdad, the worst single attack on civilians since U.S. security operations began in the embattled city. In an instant, in the pixilated flicker of a TV screen, hundreds of people I never knew lost their lives. Although these people were strangers to me, whose existence I had no knowledge of, the impersonal nature of their deaths left me deeply disconcerted. Something seems awfully awry when a human life—snuffed out, like a wisp of smoke—becomes nothing but a newspaper headline.

I have never dealt very well with death, perhaps because it is the one thing in this universe utterly beyond contestation. Death simply happens; it is an absolute and final certainty. No pleading, crying or arguing will vanquish it. But something struggles so deeply inside me, a backlash against this cold reality that begs to find articulation. “Why?” I want to ask. “Why does this happen? Why do so many people die so easily without any conceivable reason?” This backlash which struggles so futilely is an appeal to justice. I need to know why these people died, that it was not meaningless, that the wicked were punished and the innocent were rewarded. However, the situation grants me no such comfort.

The fact of the matter is that over 200 people died without rhyme or reason, without justice or meaning. What, then, can I conclude? Against all wish and desire there simply is no justice. I step out onto a precipice and call on the universe to account—I demand an explanation—but I receive nothing in return. I stare the universe in the face and what stares back is not God, Right or Wrong, Black or White, but rather the grim visage of absolute destitution—an immense and utterly vacant abyss. It is then I realize that this search is in vain.

There is no explanation for these deaths and no justification. No higher purpose was served, no judgment dealt—it just happened and tears and shouts do nothing to change it. “But how can I live in this world?” This is the question I turn to next, confused and fighting against reality. “How can I come to terms with this emptiness? How can I live knowing this?” It seems absurd to carry on living in the face of such meaninglessness. When one realizes the utter oblivion that surrounds this life, it seems impossible to live it. How can I make plans for tomorrow, next week, or next year if life is so fragile and can disappear today? How can I expect the law courts of the United States to punish criminals if Justice does not actually exist? How can I be so deluded to think my decision between the politics or philosophy major makes even the slightest difference given how meaningless my life is in absolute terms? Anything I worry about, anything I care for and anything I plan to do becomes absolutely ridiculous when considering this absurdity.

That is the human condition, the Catch-22 which entwines all alike. Quite nihilistic, wouldn’t you say? Yet, out of this situation, out of what seems so unfair and cruel, comes a glimmer of hope. The human plight, our trials and tribulations can be seen as a journey down a very narrow bridge, stray too far to one side and you fall into oblivion, stray too far to the other and you’re consumed in absurdity. It is nearly impossible to traverse this path without falling off one of the treacherous edges; all odds point to failure.

However, therein lies the monumental bravery of the human spirit—we keep on trying. We walk down this razor’s edge despite its impossibility and confronted with dual aggressors, oblivion and absurdity. We choose to ignore the colossal obstacles in our way and focus only on the path; just like the lone mountain climber, beaten by the howling, icy wind on one side and threatened by deep, craggy crevasses on the other, who chooses to ignore certain death and struggles on, all energies directed towards reaching the summit. While it may be absurd and it may be futile, the very fact that we continue to live, that we choose to walk down the razor’s edge, ignoring all the forces conspiring against us and desiring only to live reveals the awesome dignity of human existence. All alone, surrounded by darkness and meaninglessness, we humans bravely trudge on with our heads up high—this is truly noble.

So what should you do in the wake of these atrocities, asking ‘why,’ and demanding justice and meaning to events in the world? I’m certainly no authority, but it seems to me the best thing is to do what human beings have always done—laugh, smile, enjoy a good song, make plans with friends for today and for next week, watch a sunset, go to the movies, live for today, live for tomorrow, live for the rest of your life.
While there may be no intelligible meaning of our lives, we humans have managed to imbue our fleeting existence with something worthwhile. Go and enjoy life and ignore the harsh reality that surrounds it, not only because it is the only way to make life tolerable, but because it’s the only way we can make a stand. We must stare the universe back in the face and exclaim “Hey, you! It doesn’t matter what you throw at me to veer me off the path, I’m going to keep walking and I’m going to make it!” Who knows, we may even pull it off…

Maybe everyone doesn’t need a gun

As evidenced by the Elian Gonzalez incident a few years ago, if the United States government wants to come into your abode, They. Are. Coming. In. Not even cuteness and television cameras can stop them.

When the second amendment was drafted the federal arsenal consisted of the average farmer and his friends. They all had the same weapons and social contract and it behooved everyone to keep the peace.

However, there are a couple of VERY important qualitative differences between the late 18th century and 2007.

1. PEOPLE KNEW HOW TO USE FIREARMS. Children grew up working with weapons, were well-versed in their capacity for destruction and took things like marksmanship seriously.

2. Completely absent from the popular consciousness were stories, movies and television shows based around the coolness of guns and killing people. The media may not be to blame for the upshot in violent crime, but they certainly aren’t helping things by putting Uma Thurman in leather and making it look cool.

3. Firearms sprayed exactly one bullet or pellet; some, if you were lucky, sprayed buckshot. The first “repeating rifle” wasn’t invented until the late 1830s for the Mexican-American war. The drafters of our constitution had no earthly idea of the devastation that would one day be possible with the pull of a trigger.

4. The federal government was not in possession of the following: napalm, the cruise missile, a huge and ridiculously badass Marine Corps and about 500 other things designed to make any rebels nouveau seriously regret their life choices.

This list is my way of saying that the rules of gun ownership and use have changed and we either need to change with them or risk future outbreaks of heartbreaking violence such as the one that occurred on Monday on the Virginia Tech campus.

As we now know, the gunman purchased both his firearms and ammunition legally. He adhered to the Virginia law of “one gun a month per person” and purchased his first automatic assault weapon in February and his second in March from a dealer and his ammunition (again, legally) on eBay.com.

Now, as a person gifted with an average amount of common sense, there are several things about Virginia gun laws that shock and awe me, but before I go on, I should make clear that while Virginia gun laws are lax, thanks to the N.R.A. and other powerful firearm lobbies and the immense military industrial complex; gun laws in most other states barely approach anything even approaching intelligent.

Back to Virginia, in this lovely state that bumps up right against our nation’s capital, according to statistics provided by the Brady Campaign, there is NO MANDATORY: waiting period on a handgun, safety course, ballistic fingerprinting, registering with police, child-safety mechanisms, licensing or permit, limitations on Saturday Night Specials (the name given to the “junk handguns” used to commit most “crimes of passion,” usually against women or brown people—by other brown people).

But before you get too pleased with yourself, Washingtonians, in your fine state, in which this past four-day break a good friend of mine watched a man get shot in broad daylight in downtown Seattle, you are barely any better about your gun control. Again, according to the Brady Campaign, in Washington there is NO MANDATORY: ballistic fingerprinting, Child Access Prevention liability, license or permit, limitations on Saturday Night Specials, registration, safety training, child safety mechanisms and non-law enforcement persons with concealed weapons licenses may carry their weapon into school zones. Also like Virginia, mandatory background checks are not necessary if you head over to the local gun show for your new weapon.

Isn’t it time we upped our standards for deadly weapons that can end an obscene amount of life in seconds? It takes a month to get driving privileges through the state. Can’t all of our states up the requirements of gun ownership to at least that of a car?

‘Vacancy’

When we see a young couple driving down a deserted road late at night, and their car starts making funny noises, and they stop at a seedy motel with a lone night manager, and the manager takes a little extra time deciding which room to put them in, the question isn’t so much “What will happen?”––unless Tim Curry bursts onto the scene in fishnets––as “Will it be done well?” Clearly, the couple is in for a rough night. But whether it’s from a knife-wielding psycho or three guys in zombie masks isn’t really the point these days––what we are worried about is whether the movie will be stupid, or whether it will be smart.

“Vacancy,” directed by Nimród Antal, is very smart. Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale, as David and Amy, the young couple, are two of only seven actors in this lean B-movie gem, which doesn’t feel cheap so much as whittled down to the bones of old-fashioned suspense movies from the days before gore sold like french fries. David and Amy check into the seedy motel and find that the old tapes sitting above the VCR aren’t Hollywood favorites, but cheap, dirty slasher movies. What’s more––they seem to have been filmed in the room they’re sitting in right now.

It’s a premise simple enough for the teasers, and good enough for an hour of nearly sustained terror of a caliber I haven’t seen in some time. Sitting absolutely alone in my darkened theater (the movie’s cheapness may hurt its box office prospects), I found myself quite simply more on edge than I’ve been during a movie in a long time.

Antal may have made his American debut (he made a well-reviewed Hungarian film called “Kontroll”) with an inconsequential and frankly low-class movie, but what he’s done with it bears watching. From the first scene, he makes us uncomfortable with exaggerated shadows and claustrophobic close-ups, which, while certainly not subtle, are acceptable because of the lurid premise. And once the couple becomes the hunted, he and first-time screenwriter Mark L. Smith run through every trick and variation the movie can offer within its limited parameters: turning out lights, sneaking to phone booths, hiding in attics, barricading doors and one nightmarish sequence in which the pursued have to crawl through a series of dingy tunnels with the killers hot on their trail.

There’s a chess-like elegance to movies that take place in one location, when they’re done well. Hitchcock’s “Rope” did it perhaps most elegantly of all, and David Fincher’s “Panic Room” had a showy allure. “Vacancy” may be the least tasteful of the three, but it still has the thrilling, semi-delirious feel of a screenwriter squeezing a premise until he’s wrung every last drop of tension from it.

At 85 minutes, “Vacancy” may also be the most down-to-business thriller since “Run Lola Run,” and what’s particularly impressive is that Wilson and Beckinsale, with only about 15 minutes before they have to get out of the way of the plot, manage to make us care about them the whole time. The twist to the Happy Young Couple premise is that the two are driving home to sign divorce papers; Beckinsale is a bitchy pill-popper and Wilson, in rather a remarkable role, is a lolling oaf who draws out the end of each sentence like there’s nothing to look forward to afterward. And somehow, we find ourselves caring about them so much that the movie’s third-act twist nearly ruins the movie. Having promised us escapism, it comes dangerously close to disturbing, then veers back. The damage is done, though, and the best part of the movie is the middle half hour.

But in a way, like last week’s silly “Disturbia,” “Vacancy” means to be deadly serious. When “seeing a horror movie” these days is synonymous with “watching people get stabbed, beheaded, sawed and disemboweled before your eyes”––I don’t need to name the movies I’m thinking of––it’s no coincidence that Antal’s nearly bloodless thriller pits David and Amy against guys bent on turning them into the latest bloodbath spectacle. When Amy asks why anyone would want to watch the two of them trapped and panicky in their motel room, David sneers, “They’re enjoying themselves.” And to the extent that “Vacancy” gives us the same depraved thrills as its in-movie snuff films, it’s a decidedly icky experience. Whether the fact that it’s done so well that you can’t help but enjoy yourself makes the movie more legitimate, or all the more dubious, will be up to the viewer.

Grade: B+

A Couple of Thoughts

We at the Back Page have been inspired. Last week there was an article written by Natalie Knott entitled “What Knott is thinking.” It was just a list of what she is thinking. We wanted to do that. It sounded like fun. So without further ado: This is what we think about.

- If Dorian Gray were real, don’t you think that most people would think he’s weird for getting a big portrait of himself? Talk about an ego.

- If we as humans were predators and our only prey was curly fries, only the small ones would survive since the large, beautiful, curly ones (which are sort of like those really pretty peacocks) would be eaten by my friends within the first five minutes of me purchasing them. Curly fries seem to disprove Charles Darwin.

- Where did Andy-O go? I have a hankering for mediocre reggae.

- Jamiroquai used to have so many hats! WOW!

- Sometimes when I listen to “Ironic” by Alanis Morrisette I question what the word irony actually means. Then I get bored so I watch TRL.

- How does one exactly cut off a vagina? Natalie? You said you could do it… so… how do you do that?

- Did you know that in an English pizza house recently a man cut off his penis… talk about pepperoni…

- Does anyone ever get tired of the English language? I do. gjkdlas;hkjl;fdjskal;hkgl;dfsajjdfksal;rieoqwpinkmvc,.xzfkjd;sahrei

- That was pretty satisfying just then.

- Come to 24 hour T-Sports this weekend. We’re gonna be hella tired.

- If you were to make a space elevator it would take almost a month for the elevator to actually make it into outer space. What if the other astronaut only talked about how he’s always wanted to be an astronaut and you just wanted to strangle him? Because that would be like a whole month of listening to this jerk talk about how he always wanted to be an astronaut. Nerd.

- I am listening to musicovery.com right now and its now playing the second Jamiroquai song in the last 10 minutes. Man. Musicovery loves Jamiroquai.

- What if there really was a curse on the Chicago Cubs? Like, not one where they can’t win the World Series, because that’s just superstition, but like one where every member turns into a werewolf in 2009?

- Speaking of werewolves… what is their deal? Can any silver kill them? Sterling as well? Because it seems like Werewolves would really hate fancy dinners if that were the case.

- Who makes silver bullets… did anyone get honestly scared of werewolves and make a bunch of silver bullets only to realize that werewolves didn’t exist… or worse, that the things he thought were werewolves were just yorkshire terriers… I bet he was embarrassed.

- But he probably made hella money selling those silver bullets… except if it were me I’d be too embarrassed to admit I had a bunch of silver bullets… because then I’d have to explain that I thought a yorkshire terrier was a werewolf.

- Do you think that if James Bond were fighting a werewolf he would shoot the silver bullet out of the golden gun?

- Remember that kid who always played Odd Job in Goldeneye and you were always like, “No, you can’t be Odd Job” and he was like “Yeah I can, you can be Jaws” and then you had to explain to him that Jaws was a really shitty character and by that time you didn’t like that friend anymore because he wouldn’t let YOU be Odd Job? I lost seven friends because of that.

- Back to werewolves… Werewolves are humans most of the time, right? Well, if they were to bite you while they were in their human form, would you still become a werewolf? Is it just something transferred through saliva? And if that is the case, could you get it through blood transfusion or other bodily fluids? And if that’s the case, isn’t becoming a werewolf a lot like getting an STI? But instead of it causing burning pee it caused you to kill people when you turned into a rabid man-beast… I’d rather have gonorrhoea any day.

- “Teenwolf” was probably the best movie Michael J. Fox made.

- “Teenwolf 2” was much worse. Probably because Michael J. Fox wasn’t involved.

- If we are to believe “Back to the Future” we should have hella technology in eight years. And we could turn trash into plutonium.

- If we can really turn trash into plutonium in eight years do you think we’d still be frightened of anything? I think it’d be more like… shit man… we can turn trash into plutonium… fuck North Korea.

- I don’t know who’s going to be the next President of the United States… but whoever it is should probably let U2 play at their celebration party… U2 loves politics.

- We made a joke last week about how long it is taking for the bridge to get finished. Maybe that was wrong of us. I’m sure they are doing the best they can… NOT!

- Let’s bring back NOT jokes. We can do this if all combine our efforts. A dedicated group of people CAN change the world.

- NOT!

- A lot of people like the movie “The Fifth Element.” But if they looked closer they would realize that they aren’t watching a movie, but rather a big piece of shit that isn’t interesting.

- What do you think the Snapple Lady is up to? I’d say about 300 pounds! Ha ha!

- I feel awful about that last joke.

- But seriously, do you think she has any money anymore?

- Being in trouble is a false idea.

- The best part of the car is the wheel.

- Ocelots are the greatest jungle cat. They’re so small, but they don’t care.

- If the Sheehan Gallery was a restaurant they would serve some weird ass food.

- The DGs have an anchor hanging outside their window but Julie the RD made me take down the anchor I put outside of two west.

- The best thing to do with cats is to put them in bean bag chairs. They love that shit.

- Sometimes when I look at Memorial Tower it reminds me of Big Ben and then I want Peter Pan to come visit me. Usually I get Peter Richards.

- If I could collate anything else in life besides paper it would be my sandwiches. That would mean I had twice the peanut butter for every slice of bread.

- Barq’s and A&W are better than Dad’s. So are rich stepfathers.

- Venetian blinds are too ugly to be from Italy.

- I bet the number of people who have actually flexed their muscles when the Bon Appetit people in Reid ask how they want to pay is disgustingly high.

- If I were any sort of plate I’d be paper. Fuck you guys.

- Sometimes when people talk about Iraq I just like to say “Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimetable.” Then I leave.

- Playing “Apples to Apples” with Osama bin Laden would be kind of awkward.

- Grated cheese is greater cheese.

- Alberto Gonzales is adorable when he rolls his eyes.

- Guess how old I am. Twenty.

- Trans Fats are the best part of curly fries. Then the fry. Then the curly…

- The last time I peed in a library a homeless guy came in and talked to his dick.

- The sexiest building on campus is the science building.

- Ankney is really big and sometimes hard to say just like Heilongjiang

- Ceiling tiles break really easily and cost a lot to replace.

- If there is ever a fusion drink of cranberries, blueberries and blackberries, I hope it’s called Cran-Berry.

- A lot of the balconies on Lyman are completely unused and this campus drastically needs more potted plants.

- If hitting Ctr+shift+delete is part of Whitman Tech Service’s security I hope they spent a lot of time coming up with that.

- Jamiroquai is now playing for the third time.

- Powell’s is like the king of the book stores. But unlike the T-Rex, Powell’s arms are not short and unusable… they don’t exist…

- Freshman is a sexist term, because it uses the word man in its title… but so does woman.

- Do you think that the bridge near Reid is taking so long to build because George Bridges just wanted some extra publicity, and he likes to hear that he is the better Bridge?

- Sometimes when I’m bored I think about things like computers and about the best way to solve a Sudoku puzzle or maybe about what I want to eat for lunch, but then I think… what about the symposium?

Abortion rights in the United States: Why I’m worried

On Wednesday, April 18, the Supreme Court ruled to uphold, for the first time since 1973, a federal ban on an abortion procedure that does not contain an exception for the health of the mother. The ruling is unprecedented and, frankly, confusing, for several reasons.

The Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act contains a number of false assertions about the procedure (which is actually called intact dilation and evacuation) and about the medical community’s opinion of it. The ruling states that “The Act is not invalid on its face where there is uncertainty over whether the barred procedure is ever necessary to preserve a woman’s health, given the availability of other abortion procedures that are considered to be safe alternatives.” It asserts that the uncertainty is there.

The court has admitted that there was not a medical consensus on the issue; indeed, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology opposes the act and holds that the procedure is sometimes the safest one for a woman. ACOG represents more than 90 percent of certified obstetricians and gynecologists in the United States. To call this medical uncertainty is a broader interpretation of “uncertainty” than any previous abortion ruling, and is in direct opposition to the findings of the District Courts on this case, and of the Supreme Court on the same procedure in Casey v. Stenberg. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, in her dissent, calls the decision “bewildering.”

The ruling also states that when women know about the procedure, they may not want to have it. These are Justice Kennedy’s words: “It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns, only after the event, what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce the skull and vacuum the fast-developing brain of her unborn child, a child assuming the human form.”

Of this argument for upholding the ban, Ginsberg writes, “The solution the Court approves, then, is not to require doctors to inform women, accurately and adequately, of the different procedures and their attendant risks. Instead, the Court deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice, even at the expense of their safety.” There is only an exception for when it can be proved that the woman would have died had she not had the procedure.

It is significant that Kennedy chooses the political term “unborn child” rather than the medical term “fetus.” Elsewhere he refers to OB-GYN physicians as “abortion doctors.” In his language, he is aligning himself, and the Supreme Court, with the anti-abortion lobby. This case was ostensibly not about the right to an abortion, but this use of language indicates that under the surface it absolutely was.

The court writes, “Congress could nonetheless conclude that the type of abortion proscribed by the Act requires specific regulation because it implicates additional ethical and moral concerns that justify a special prohibition.” These “moral concerns” are, as Justice Ginsberg puts it, allowed to “carry the day and case.”

I never worried before that allowing Congress to legislate on some abortion procedures would signal the impending doom of Roe v. Wade. Now I’m worried.

Scrambles get minor makeover

Some of this year’s scrambles offer portable restrooms. “You won’t even have to squat in the woods to poop because we’ll carry a portable toilet with a toilet seat to minimize our impact on the river environment!” said the leaders of the rafting scramble on the Lower Salmon River, Season Martin, Gwen Leslie and Jessica Bruhn.

“This year’s scrambles are offering a diverse range of destinations as usual,” said the Outdoor Program (OP) scramble intern Richard Olney. There are 16 scrambles (nine backpacking, two rock climbing, two canoeing and two sea kayaking) and the trip destinations include everywhere from Slocan Lake, Canada, to the Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, to Olympic National Park on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

Portable toilets for the river scramble won’t be the only change to the scramble program this year.

“Last year we did 15 trips; this year we’re doing 16,” said OP director Brien Sheedy. While the number of trips is limited by the available gear for the scrambles, an additional scramble was made possible by adding a second athletes/debaters scramble and replacing one of the generally seven- or eight-day trips with a shorter six-day trip.

“Equipment from athlete/debate scrambles will be turned right around for the miniature scrambles,” explained Sheedy.

Also new this year is “a sea kayaking scramble off the Gulf Islands. It will be the first time we’ve ever done a saltwater sea kayaking scramble,” said Sheedy

“One of the big things that changed this year was the fierce competition for scramble leaders,” noted Sheedy. “We had to turn down a lot of people who would have led great scrambles.”

“There were fist-fights [over scramble leader spots], I hear, in the alleyways,” said Sam Norgaard-Stroich, assistant OP director.
This summer’s scramblers will also be the first scramblers eligible for need-based scholarships. “There’s some money that came in from an anonymous donor that’s available for a limited number of scholarships,” said Sheedy. The Financial Aid Office will determine the recipients of the 50 percent scholarships.

Scrambles are a money in, money out operation with no budget of their own to allow for extra elements such as scholarships.
Several colleges, such as Hamilton and Dartmouth, offer scramble-like pre-orientation trips at no cost to students.
Scrambles will otherwise be mostly the same as they have in past years.

“Scrambles are a perfect chance for students to end their summer, to make new friends, and most of all, to have great fun,” said first-year Emily Rodriguez.

The new friends and great fun of scrambles shall remain unaltered.

‘Onionfest’ ultimate tournament a success

Last weekend over 350 ultimate players descended upon Whitman Campus for Onionfest, one of the largest co-ed tournaments in the Northwest.

Twenty-three teams competed in the tournament. Both Saturday and Sunday, Ankeny, Harper Joy Field and the soccer fields were overrun with athletes, who played ultimate from sun-up to sun-down. Whitman fielded three teams for the tournament.

The A-team performed best, going 2-2 on the Saturday. On Sunday, they won their pre-quarters match-up but lost in the quarterfinals to Aging Seattle Youth, who went on to take second in the tournament.

Northfield, a team composed mainly of Carleton ultimate alumni living in Seattle, won the tournament for the seventh time in eight years.

Onionfest is a co-ed tournament, meaning that all teams in the tournament must have both male and female athletes. Throughout the game, each team must have the same proportion of males and females on the field as the opposing side. Usually, two or three females will be on each team’s seven-player line-up.

“It was fun to play a sport with girls, to get to know them on the field,” said Junior Jay Davidson, who played on the B-team. “It’s less intense than when you play at all-guy tournaments.”

Sophomore Kevin Booth, who watched the event, was more skeptical. “It was exciting to watch guys and girls competing together, but it also accentuated male dominance and arrogance because of where the Frisbee went,” said Booth. “Some girls would be wide open, and guys wouldn’t even look at them.”

Whitman Sweets’ Captain Micah Jarnot embraced the mixed style of play. “Onionfest strikes a good balance between competitive Frisbee and a low-key atmosphere,” said Jarnot. “Overall, it was great. It was the best tournament I have played been part of. The weather was perfect.”

“The competitive level can be high,” said Jarnot. “Some of the best players in the world come to Onionfest.”
This included Joshua Ziperstein, an alumni of Brown University’s ultimate team, and winner of the 2005 UPA Callahan Award, which honors the MVP of college ultimate. Ziperstein played on Northfield, which won the tournament.

Whitman Sweets’ co-captains Jarnot and Jonathan Loeffler organized the event. They were responsible not only for getting the teams to compete, but also for organizing practical necessities of the tournament.

“You have to make sure you have field-food, enough water for all the teams, Taco truck for the last day, and a party for all the players,” said Jarnot. “It took a lot of delegation to the rest of the team to get everything done. It was really a team effort.”

Not only did ultimate players work to make the event a success, but college employees also made significant contributions.

“The grass was in great shape,” said Davidson. “The maintenance people really did a great job.”

Booth highlighted a different side of the tournament. “The rush to free Taco-Truck created a nice end to the hard day—everyone needed a nice big burrito. It was like watching wildebeests gather around a watering hole.”

Free food at the Organic Garden

Organic is in. From organic chapstick to shampoo to tampons, many modern Americans want their products pesticide-free, all-natural, or home grown.

Whitman College has its very own new and improved organic garden, located next to the Physical Plant and behind the Hall of Science. Everything grown in the garden is free to anyone who wants to come pick it—for a little labor. “A handful of weeds,” the slogan says, “for a handful of produce.”

title='Photo by Andrew Propp'>“You just go in, do some work, and take something home with you. Anyone can go, Whitman or non-Whitman community members,” said garden worker and Whitman student Karlis Rokpelnis.

Right now the garden is blooming with spinach, herbs and other greens. Also, there will be food growing all summer through for those remaining in Walla Walla after May.

The garden has better quality and an even higher quantity of produce than last year.

President of the Organic Garden Mica Quintana said, “We are starting an eight-year rotation system. This works off of the theory that certain plants grow well after other plant have been growing in that area. We divide different plants by family and rotate them.”

The Organic Garden has also employed a full-time intern to take care of the garden, Whitman student Kevin Van Meter. “The intern does research on gardening methods and develops an overall plan for the garden,” Quintana said.

“Basically there’s a just a lot more energy going into the garden this semester. There are a ton of people working on it,” said Van Meter.

The garden is open to everyone, 24 hours a day. But, to get your hands dirty in company, there are now specific times to dust off your spicket and hoe and start weeding.

“We have standardized gardening times.” Quintana said. “Everyone is invited to come garden Friday and Saturday afternoons, at 3:30 to 6 on Friday and 1:30 to 4 on Saturday.”

“We have more food than we can use, so we really like it when people come,” said Quintana.

Students tell Congress to ‘Step It Up’

Campus Climate Challenge in cooperation with Walla Walla College organized Step It Up, a nationwide event on Saturday, April 14 to tell Congress to “Step it Up” and reduce carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050.

Approximately 100 people gathered in Pioneer Park for the event. Community members and students made personal pledges to reduce carbon emissions in their personal lives and received a raffle ticket.

The event hosted several speakers, music and much information about all aspects of global warming, including policy, science and social implications.

Whittie of the Week: Marshall Baker, fiddlin’ gansta

This week’s Whittie defies stereotypes. While he may seem like a rap loving gangster, this 2 West party boy loves to play the fiddle. It is for his unique character that Marshall Baker is Whittie of the Week.

Baker grew up in Portland, Oregon. He attended public school throughout his academic career, but switched schools a few times. He first attended Sabin Elementary School where his mom worked as a special education teacher. He left before fourth grade after repeatedly getting into trouble. Baker describes himself as “just a stupid, impulsive kid who couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”

He could certainly play a fiddle, though. Baker’s father taught him to play the fiddle when he was only 6 and he hasn’t stopped playing since. He entered in local and national contests, usually placing top five in the state championships.

He said, “It was pretty cool to for a 10-year-old kid to play for six minutes and make 100 dollars.” He especially liked the National Oldtime Fiddlers Festival. The festival takes place in Weiser, Idaho.

Baker describes fiddling as “having its own little subculture.” The Festival draws tens of thousands of people to Idaho for five to 10 days of fiddling fun. Baker likes the different kinds of people. He said, “You get people from cities, really religious conservative people just out of the hills and all different ages.”

Fiddle isn’t the only instrument Baker plays. He also plays the clarinet and bass. Baker currently plays bass for the Whitman Jazz Sextet.

Baker is also in a bluegrass band with his father. The band is called “Larry Wilder and the Stumptown Stars.” This summer the band will be touring around Europe.

The band plans to travel from June to July through countries such as Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Baker doesn’t think that the band is all that well-known, but rather that “they just like American music over there.” Apparently Europeans like bluegrass enough to give them a gig almost every single night.

Aside from the fiddle, Baker plays rugby. He likes it because “it’s an aggressive, animal sport.” He also feels that he needs it “or else [he] will be violent.” Baker wrestled in high school and also admits to “getting into a few scraps.”

Baker is thinking of possibly double majoring in music and anthropology, as he also enjoys learning about other cultures. This is evident from his “Yellow Bus” radio show that is all about exploring an extremely unique culture: the hyphy movement.

Whitman to honor Earth Day

In honor of Earth Day, the Campus Greens is putting on a stewardship project to help students to feel the satisfaction of tangibly helping to conserve the environment and giving back to their community but working with their own hands.

For this event, which will be held on April 21, the Campus Greens have worked in conjunction with a variety of local organizations, such as the Tri-State Steelheaders, Walla Walla 20/20 and the Sustainable Living Center, in order to provide outdoor service opportunities to a significant number of Whitties.

In shifts from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. volunteers get to feel the satisfaction of physically effecting change in their community and environment by building trails, planting native species and helping with habitat restoration.

At 4:30 p.m. participants will reconvene on Ankeny for a small festival. Booths from campus and community environmental groups will be there with fun demonstrations and useful information. Volunteers will tie-dye, foot-paint, drink root-beer floats, participate in a drum circle and listen to campus bands to celebrate their positive contributions and get ready for Earth Day.